Plugin skills not discovered in / menu - only commands/ directory works

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Jan 26, 2026 by sstraus Closed Jan 30, 2026

Description

Plugin skills defined in skills/ directory are not discoverable via the / command menu, even though the documentation claims commands and skills are equivalent.

Reproduction Steps

  1. Create a plugin with skills in the skills/ directory:

``
plugin-name/
└── skills/
└── my-skill/
└── SKILL.md
`

  1. Create a command in the commands/ directory with equivalent content:

``
plugin-name/
└── commands/
└── my-command.md
``

  1. Enable the plugin in Claude Code
  2. Type / to see available commands

Expected Behavior

Per the documentation (https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills):

"A file at .claude/commands/review.md and a skill at .claude/skills/review/SKILL.md both create /review and work the same way."

Skills in skills/ should appear in the / command menu just like commands in commands/.

Actual Behavior

  • Commands in commands/ directory appear in the / menu ✅
  • Skills in skills/ directory DO NOT appear in the / menu ❌
  • Manual invocation (e.g., /plugin:skill-name) may work, but discovery fails

Additional Context

This behavior is undocumented. The docs claim equivalence but this only applies to project-level (.claude/skills/), not plugin-level. This caused a breaking change when migrating the Wiz plugin from commands/ to skills/ in v3.0.0.

Environment

  • Claude Code: 2.1.x+
  • Plugin location: User plugin with skills/ directory structure

Expected Fix

Either:

  1. Make plugin skills/ discoverable via the / menu (recommended - aligns with docs)
  2. Update documentation to clarify that skills in plugins must use commands/ for discoverability

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