Built-in /btw command conflicts with superpowers skill resolution

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 18, 2026 by BigFaceMaster Closed Apr 16, 2026

Bug Report

Describe the bug

The superpowers plugin intercepts all slash commands and attempts to resolve them as skills. This causes a conflict with Claude Code's built-in /btw command (introduced in v2.1.72), which is not a skill but a native Claude Code feature.

When a user types /btw <question>, instead of triggering the built-in ephemeral sidebar query, superpowers intercepts the command and returns:

Unknown skill: btw

To Reproduce

  • Install the superpowers plugin in Claude Code
  • Update Claude Code to v2.1.72 or later
  • Type /btw <any question> in the Claude Code prompt
  • Observe the error: Unknown skill: btw

Expected behavior

/btw should pass through to Claude Code's native handler and open an ephemeral side-question overlay — without adding the question/answer to the main conversation history.

Environment

  • Claude Code version: 2.1.77
  • superpowers plugin version: 5.0.4
  • OS: macOS Darwin 25.3.0

Background

The /btw command was introduced in Claude Code v2.1.72 as a way to ask side questions without polluting the main conversation context. This is particularly useful for:

  • Quick lookups while in the middle of a task
  • Asking clarifying questions about code without breaking flow
  • Exploring tangential ideas without losing the main thread

The superpowers plugin's command interception appears to be too aggressive, catching all / prefixed commands regardless of whether they match a known skill.

Possible Solutions

  1. Whitelist approach: Only intercept commands that match known skill names, pass through everything else to native handlers
  2. Blacklist approach: Maintain a list of native Claude Code commands (btw, clear, help, etc.) that should never be treated as skills
  3. Priority system: Allow native commands to take precedence, only falling back to skill resolution if no native handler exists

Additional Context

This issue was originally reported in the superpowers repository: https://github.com/obra/superpowers/issues/775

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Migrated from obra/superpowers#775

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