Feature request: disabledSkills setting + status bar indicator for per-session skill toggle
Problem
Skills like superpowers are powerful but sometimes overkill for casual conversations. Since they auto-trigger based on instructions loaded at session start, there's no way to know if they'll fire or turn them off without digging into settings manually.
Two things are missing:
- A
disabledSkillssetting insettings.jsonto suppress specific skills globally or by pattern - A visible indicator in the status bar showing whether skills are active
I tried adding "disabledSkills": ["superpowers:*"] to ~/.claude/settings.json but it was rejected:
Settings validation failed:
- : Unrecognized field: disabledSkills
Workaround (until native support lands)
I built a hook-based workaround that achieves the same effect:
~/.claude/superpowers.state — flag file containing on or off
~/.claude/superpowers-hook.sh — UserPromptSubmit hook that injects context when disabled:
#!/bin/bash
STATE_FILE="$HOME/.claude/superpowers.state"
state=$(cat "$STATE_FILE" 2>/dev/null || echo "on")
if [ "$state" = "off" ]; then
printf '{"hookSpecificOutput":{"hookEventName":"UserPromptSubmit","additionalContext":"[SUPERPOWERS DISABLED] Do NOT auto-invoke any superpowers:* skills this session. Only use them if the user explicitly says use superpowers."}}'
fi
~/.claude/toggle-superpowers.sh — toggle script run via ! ~/.claude/toggle-superpowers.sh:
#!/bin/bash
STATE_FILE="$HOME/.claude/superpowers.state"
current=$(cat "$STATE_FILE" 2>/dev/null || echo "on")
if [ "$current" = "off" ]; then
echo "on" > "$STATE_FILE"
echo "Superpowers ENABLED"
else
echo "off" > "$STATE_FILE"
echo "Superpowers DISABLED"
fi
Status bar indicator added to custom statusline script:
sp_state=$(cat ~/.claude/superpowers.state 2>/dev/null || echo "on")
if [ "$sp_state" = "off" ]; then
printf " \033[2;31m[✖️ superpowers]\033[0m"
else
printf " \033[1;32m[✔️ superpowers]\033[0m"
fi
Registered in settings.json:
"hooks": {
"UserPromptSubmit": [
{ "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "/bin/bash ~/.claude/superpowers-hook.sh" }] }
]
}
Requested native solution
disabledSkillsarray insettings.jsonsupporting exact names and wildcards (e.g."superpowers:*")- Built-in status bar token showing active/disabled skill groups — so users can glance at the status bar each session and know what's armed
- Optionally: a
/skillstoggle command for per-session override without editing files
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