Autocomplete dropdown truncates custom skills — display cap of ~47 entries

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Apr 4, 2026 by auerbachb Closed May 13, 2026

Problem

The / autocomplete dropdown appears to have a hard display cap of approximately 47 entries. With ~30 built-in commands + 18 custom skills loaded from ~/.claude/skills/, 1-2 custom skills are silently dropped from the autocomplete list. The dropped skills still load and execute correctly when typed manually — they're just not discoverable via autocomplete.

Affected skills (consistently missing from autocomplete across repos):

  • /prompt
  • /pm-handoff

These skills work fine when invoked by typing the full name.

Environment

  • Claude Desktop app (macOS)
  • 18 custom skills in ~/.claude/skills/ (symlinked via a dedicated skills worktree)
  • No project-level skills in the affected repos
  • Issue reproduces across multiple repos (not repo-specific)

Observations

  • Autocomplete shows 47 entries (counted manually)
  • Entries are not alphabetized — appears to be filesystem/discovery order
  • The same skills are consistently missing across new sessions and different repos
  • Skills missing from autocomplete still execute correctly when typed manually

Debugging steps performed

All passed — the issue is purely in the autocomplete UI, not skill loading:

  1. Symlinks valid: All 18 skills in ~/.claude/skills/ are symlinks pointing to a skills worktree; all resolve correctly and SKILL.md files are readable
  2. No blocking frontmatter: No disable-model-invocation: true or user-invocable: false on any skill
  3. No built-in shadowing: Verified no built-in /prompt or /pm-handoff command exists
  4. Character budget not exceeded: Total description length across all 18 skills is ~4,449 chars (well under the 8K fallback for SLASH_COMMAND_TOOL_CHAR_BUDGET)
  5. No project-level overrides: No project-level settings.json filters or skill directories in affected repos
  6. Skills load into context: Both missing skills appear in the system-reminder skills listing during conversations — they're loaded, just not in the dropdown
  7. No SLASH_COMMAND_TOOL_CHAR_BUDGET override set

Expected behavior

All loaded skills should appear in the autocomplete dropdown regardless of count, or at minimum the cap should be documented and configurable.

Feature request: disable/hide unused built-in commands

As a workaround for the display cap, it would be helpful to have a way to hide built-in slash commands that aren't used. Many of the ~30 built-in commands (e.g. /vim, /powerup, /mobile, /voice) are irrelevant for some users, and they consume slots in the autocomplete dropdown that could go to custom skills.

Possible approaches:

  • A disabledCommands array in settings.json to hide specific built-in commands from autocomplete
  • A slashCommandDisplayLimit setting to raise or remove the cap
  • Prioritizing custom skills over built-in commands in the dropdown when space is limited

Workaround

Type the full command name (e.g. /prompt) instead of relying on autocomplete. The skill executes normally.

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