[BUG] Personal/global skills at ~/.claude/skills/ not recognized

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Description:

Skills placed in the personal/global directory ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md are not loaded or recognized by Claude Code, despite documentation indicating they should work.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create a skill at ~/.claude/skills/flexoki-plotting/SKILL.md with valid frontmatter:

---
name: flexoki-plotting
description: Flexoki light theme colors and conventions for matplotlib/plotly visualizations.
---

1. Start a Claude Code session in any project
2. Try to invoke /flexoki-plotting or check available skills

Expected Behavior:

• Skill should appear in available skills list
• /flexoki-plotting should invoke the skill
• Auto-invocation should trigger based on description matching context

Actual Behavior:

• Skill is not recognized: Unknown skill: flexoki-plotting
• Does not appear in available skills list
• Only project-level skills (.claude/skills/) are loaded

Workaround:
Copy the skill to project level: .claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md - this works correctly.

Environment:

• Claude Code version: (run claude --version)
• OS: macOS Darwin 25.0.0
• Installation method: npm

Documentation Reference:
The skills documentation states personal skills at ~/.claude/skills/ should be available globally across all projects with priority 2 in the hierarchy.

What Should Happen?

Expected Behavior:

Skill should appear in available skills list
/flexoki-plotting should invoke the skill
Auto-invocation should trigger based on description matching context

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a skill at ~/.claude/skills/flexoki-plotting/SKILL.md with valid frontmatter:

---
name: flexoki-plotting
description: Flexoki light theme colors and conventions for matplotlib/plotly visualizations.
---

1. Start a Claude Code session in any project
2. Try to invoke /flexoki-plotting or check available skills

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.25

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Warp

Additional Information

_No response_