Skills from plugins registered twice in system prompt, doubling context usage
Description
Every skill from every enabled plugin appears twice in the system-reminder skill list injected into the conversation context. This doubles the token cost of the skill registry and can push sessions over the prompt limit at initialization.
Steps to Reproduce
- Enable multiple plugins in
~/.claude/settings.json, for example:
``json``
{
"enabledPlugins": {
"claude-md-management@claude-plugins-official": true,
"ralph-loop@claude-plugins-official": true,
"claude-code-setup@claude-plugins-official": true,
"superpowers@claude-plugins-official": true,
"agent-sdk-dev@claude-plugins-official": true
}
}
- Start a new Claude Code session in a project that also has local skills (e.g.
.claude/skills/) - Observe the
<system-reminder>block listing available skills — every skill appears twice
Observed Behavior
The skill list in <system-reminder> contains duplicate entries for every registered skill. Example (truncated):
- utf16-char-matcher-design: Use this skill when designing...
- simd-charclass-jdk26-valhalla: Use this skill whenever generating...
...
- claude-md-management:revise-claude-md: Update CLAUDE.md...
- ralph-loop:help: Explain Ralph Loop plugin...
...
- claude-md-management:revise-claude-md: Update CLAUDE.md... (DUPLICATE)
- ralph-loop:help: Explain Ralph Loop plugin... (DUPLICATE)
...
With 8 plugins enabled (~30 skills total), this results in ~60 skill description entries in the system prompt.
Expected Behavior
Each skill should appear exactly once in the skill list.
Impact
- "Prompt is too long" errors at session start — With enough plugins + project CLAUDE.md + MEMORY.md + MCP server context, the accumulated system prompt exceeds the limit before the user even sends their first message.
- Wasted context tokens — The duplicated skill descriptions consume context budget on every single message in the conversation, reducing available space for actual work.
Environment
- Claude Code version: latest (as of 2026-02-22)
- OS: macOS Darwin 25.2.0
- Number of enabled plugins: 8
- Local project skills: 2
Workaround
Reducing the number of enabled plugins alleviates the issue, but users shouldn't need to disable useful plugins to stay within prompt limits.
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