Cowork: User-defined Skills from ~/.claude/skills/ not loaded

Summary

Cowork sessions do not recognize user-defined skills from ~/.claude/skills/. Only the built-in standard skills (docx, pdf, pptx, xlsx, schedule, skill-creator) and plugin-based skills are available. In Claude Code CLI sessions, the same skills are correctly loaded.

Current Behavior

• Claude Code CLI: Automatically detects and loads skills from ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md
• Cowork: Only shows pre-installed standard skills under .claude/skills/ in the mounted workspace

Example: 19 user-defined skills in ~/.claude/skills/ (including zettelkasten, topic, obsidian-markdown, illustrate, json-canvas) are available in the CLI but not visible in Cowork.

Expected Behavior

Cowork should — like the CLI — automatically detect user-defined skills from ~/.claude/skills/ and make them available in the session. The skills should appear in the <available_skills> list and be callable via the Skill tool.

Why This Matters

1. Feature parity: Users who develop skills for the CLI expect the same skills to work in Cowork. Currently, two separate systems (skills for CLI, plugins for Cowork) must be maintained.

1. Skill hierarchy: The CLI supports a clear hierarchy — personal skills (~/.claude/skills/), project skills (.claude/skills/ in repo). This hierarchy should be preserved in Cowork.

1. Avoiding duplication: The workaround of copying skills into the project directory creates redundancy and inconsistencies on updates. Packaging skills as plugins requires rework and creates a parallel structure.

Concrete Use Case

Obsidian Zettelkasten workflow with project-specific skills for note creation, topic management, and vault conventions. In the CLI these skills are automatically available — in Cowork the user must manually provide the conventions via Markdown files in the vault (NOTE_CREATION.md, TOPIC_CREATION.md), partially duplicating the skills.

Suggestion

• Scan ~/.claude/skills/ at session start and include as <available_skills>
• Alternatively: Provide an option in Cowork settings to mount additional skill directories