[BUG] Skill Installer Silent Failure
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
Product: Cowork (desktop, Windows)
Version: Current as of May 2026
Severity: Medium — no data loss, but causes persistent incorrect state and wastes significant user time
Issue 1: .skill Installer Silently Fails When Skills Folder is Read-Only
What Should Happen?
Expected behavior: The skill is installed. The installed file reflects the updated content.
Actual behavior: The installer appears to succeed. No error is shown. The installed skill file on disk is unchanged. The new session reads the old skill.
Error Messages/Logs
**Root cause (identified via diagnostic):**
The skills folder is mounted read-only inside the Cowork session environment:
fuse (ro,nosuid,nodev,...) on /sessions/.../mnt/.claude/skills
The installer cannot write to a read-only mount. It does not surface this as an error.
Steps to Reproduce
Steps to reproduce:
- Build or update a skill, package it as a
.skillfile - Click "Save Skill" in the Cowork install dialog
- Open a new session and ask Claude to read the installed skill
Expected behavior: The skill is installed. The installed file reflects the updated content.
Actual behavior: The installer appears to succeed. No error is shown. The installed skill file on disk is unchanged. The new session reads the old skill.
Claude Model
Sonnet (default)
Is this a regression?
I don't know
Last Working Version
_No response_
Claude Code Version
1.719.0 (2dbd78(
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
Windows Terminal
Additional Information
The installer cannot write to a read-only mount. It does not surface this as an error.
Workaround: Manually navigate to the skills folder on disk and replace the SKILL.md file directly. On Windows, the path follows this pattern:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Claude\local-agent-mode-sessions\skills-plugin\[workspace-id]\[user-id]\skills\[skill-name]\SKILL.md
This path is not documented anywhere in the UI and requires running diagnostic mount commands inside a session to discover.
Time lost: Multiple sessions across one week attempting to diagnose why skill updates were not taking effect.
This issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗