[BUG] All official plugin slash commands (/) unavailable — plugin.json missing commands/skills fields

[BUG] All official plugin slash commands (/) unavailable — plugin.json missing commands/skills fields

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues for similar reports
• [x] This report does NOT contain sensitive information (API keys, passwords, etc.)

What's Wrong?

All slash commands from official claude-plugins-official marketplace plugins are completely unavailable. Typing / in the CLI shows no plugin-provided commands, and attempting to invoke them returns Unknown skill or Unknown slash command.

Root Cause Identified

All 22 official plugins have .claude-plugin/plugin.json files that are missing commands and skills field declarations.

Verified across all installed plugins:

$ for plugin in ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-plugins-official/*/; do
    plugin_json="$plugin"*/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
    echo "$(basename $plugin): commands=$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('$plugin_json')); print('YES' if 'commands' in d else 'NO')"), skills=$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('$plugin_json')); print('YES' if 'skills' in d else 'NO')")"
  done

commit-commands: commands=NO, skills=NO
hookify: commands=NO, skills=NO
superpowers: commands=NO, skills=NO
context7: commands=NO, skills=NO
github: commands=NO, skills=NO
# ... all 22 plugins show NO for both fields

Expected plugin.json format (per official docs):

{
  "name": "plugin-name",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "commands": ["./commands/"],
  "skills": ["./skills/"],
  "hooks": "./hooks/hooks.json"
}

Actual plugin.json format (all official plugins):

{
  "name": "commit-commands",
  "description": "Streamline your git workflow...",
  "author": {
    "name": "Anthropic",
    "email": "support@anthropic.com"
  }
  // ❌ Missing "commands" field
  // ❌ Missing "skills" field
}

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Claude Code v2.1.156 (or any recent version)
2. Install official plugins: /plugin install superpowers@claude-plugins-official
3. Restart Claude Code
4. Type / to browse commands — no plugin commands appear
5. Try /commit or /superpowers:brainstorm — "Unknown skill/command"

Expected Behavior

• Plugin slash commands should appear in / autocomplete
• Commands like /commit, /hookify:help, /superpowers:brainstorm should be invokable
• Skills should be auto-discovered from skills/ directories per official docs

Actual Behavior

• / autocomplete shows only built-in commands (/help, /clear, /compact, etc.)
• All plugin commands return Unknown skill or Unknown slash command
• Plugin hooks (SessionStart) may still work, but slash commands are completely broken

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.156
• OS: Linux (WSL2/Ubuntu)
• Shell: zsh
• Install method: npm
• Enabled plugins:
• superpowers@claude-plugins-official
• commit-commands@claude-plugins-official
• hookify@claude-plugins-official
• context7@claude-plugins-official
• github@claude-plugins-official
• claude-mem@thedotmack
• oh-my-claudecode@omc
• (and 15+ others)

Related Issues (Closed but Unresolved)

The following issues were closed but the underlying problem persists:

| Issue | Title | Status |
|-------|-------|--------|
| #48963 | Plugin skills not appearing in / menu after v2.1.110 update | 🟢 Closed (claimed fixed, but persists) |
| #23819 | Plugin installation creates symlinks causing duplicate slash commands | 🟢 Closed |
| #47347 | Personal plugin upload: skills not registering in runtime | 🟢 Closed |
| #21125 | Plugin skills not appearing in slash command autocomplete | 🟢 Closed |
| #38501 | Skills from marketplace not discoverable | 🟢 Closed |
| #41842 | Plugin skills missing from autocomplete | 🟢 Closed |

Related Open Issues (Same Root Cause)

| Issue | Title |
|-------|-------|
| #57737 | Plugin skills/ don't register as slash commands when plugin loaded via project-local extraKnownMarketplaces |
| #50075 | Skills/commands with disable-model-invocation: true hidden from agent |
| #51008 | Skills appear duplicated/triplicated in slash command list |
| #45595 | /buddy slash command no longer available — returns 'Unknown skill: buddy' |
| #62485 | Plugin skills from custom/private marketplaces appear in slash menu but fail with "Unknown skill" |
| #29047 | Plugins not loading |

Impact

• All official plugin slash commands are broken — not just third-party plugins
• Users cannot use /commit, /hookify:help, /superpowers:brainstorm, etc.
• Documentation claims "Custom commands have been merged into skills" and both skills/ and commands/ should work, but neither does for official plugins
• This affects every user who installs plugins from the official marketplace

Workaround

The only workaround is to invoke skills via the Skill tool programmatically, or to describe what you want in natural language and hope the agent auto-invokes the skill. This is not acceptable for documented slash command functionality.

Proposed Fix

1. Immediate: Update all 22 official claude-plugins-official plugins' .claude-plugin/plugin.json to include proper commands and skills field declarations
2. Long-term: Add validation to claude plugin validate to catch missing commands/skills fields before plugins are published to the marketplace
3. Documentation: Clarify whether skills/ alone should produce slash commands, or if commands/ directory is required

Additional Context

The maintainer of the superpowers plugin confirmed in obra/superpowers#1630:

"Yes. it's 100% skills. and codex should correctly auto load using-superpowers at start because their skill prompting is so strong. And yes, slash commands are deprecated everywhere."

However, the official Claude Code documentation still references slash commands as a supported feature, and the /plugin UI shows plugins as "enabled" while their commands remain completely inaccessible.

This is a critical regression that breaks the plugin ecosystem's most visible user-facing feature.