[BUG] Plugin userConfig values written to global settings.json even when plugin is installed with project scope

Claude Code version: 2.1.210

Description

When a plugin declares a userConfig block in plugin.json and is installed/enabled with project scope, the answers to the userConfig prompts are still written to the global ~/.claude/settings.json under pluginConfigs, instead of the project-local .claude/settings.json.

Steps to reproduce

1. Author a plugin with a userConfig block in .claude-plugin/plugin.json, e.g.:

``json
"userConfig": {
"local_repo_path": { "type": "directory", "required": true },
"base_branch": { "type": "string", "default": "main" }
}
``

1. Install/enable the plugin scoped to a specific project (e.g. via the plugin UI, choosing "project" scope).
2. Confirm the install was recorded as project-scoped — ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json shows:

``json
{ "scope": "project", "projectPath": "C:\\...\\my-project", ... }
``

1. Answer the userConfig prompts (e.g. local_repo_path: ../my-repo).
2. Inspect where the values landed:

• Project's ./.claude/settings.json → only contains enabledPlugins, no pluginConfigs entry.
• Global ~/.claude/settings.json → contains the new entry:

``json
"pluginConfigs": {
"my-plugin@my-marketplace": {
"options": { "local_repo_path": "../my-repo", "base_branch": "main" }
}
}
``

Expected behavior

Since the plugin was explicitly installed with project scope, its userConfig answers should be stored alongside that scope (e.g. in the project's .claude/settings.json), not merged into the global user settings.

Actual behavior

pluginConfigs is always written to ~/.claude/settings.json, regardless of install scope. There appears to be no project-scoped storage location for userConfig answers at all.

Impact

Several userConfig fields are inherently project-relative by design (e.g. a type: "directory" field pointing at a sibling repo checkout, or a branch name). Because the values are forced into global scope:

• Using the same plugin in two different projects with different config values overwrites the config for both — last write wins.
• A project-relative path value (e.g. ../sibling-repo) becomes meaningless/wrong as soon as you're working in a different project.

This makes userConfig effectively unusable for any plugin meant to be installed per-project with per-project settings.

Related issues (none appear to be an exact duplicate of this specific scope mismatch):

• #11461 (closed) – general per-project plugin config feature request
• #62209 – feature request for pluginDefaultScope
• #46477 – feature request for default field in userConfig
• #39827 – userConfig prompt not shown during install