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claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [FEATURE] Plugin user override layer — preserve local customizations across plugin updates [1 participants]

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anthropics/claude-code#55083•Fetched 2026-05-01 05:46:41
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Error Message

Option A: Warn before overwriting user-modified files — at least prevents

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Preflight Checklist

  • I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
  • This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

When a user installs a plugin and customizes a skill to fit their workflow — adjusting prompts, adding org-specific context, tweaking behavior — those changes are silently overwritten the next time they run /plugin to update. There is no diff, no merge step, and no warning. The user must either avoid updating or manually back up and reapply their changes every time.

Concrete scenario:

  1. User installs ai-pm-copilot from a team marketplace
  2. User modifies ~/.claude/plugins/ai-pm-copilot/skills/prd-templates/SKILL.md
  3. Plugin maintainer ships a new version with improvements to prd-templates
  4. User runs /plugin to get the improvements
  5. Their customizations are gone — overwritten with no indication

Proposed Solution

A user override layer: a parallel directory (e.g. ~/.claude/plugins-user/) where users place files that shadow installed plugin files at load time, without modifying the plugin directory itself.

  • /plugin updates only touch ~/.claude/plugins/ — the user layer is never modified
  • If a matching file exists in ~/.claude/plugins-user/<plugin-name>/, it takes precedence at load time
  • Customizations survive all future updates

This is the same pattern used by VS Code (user settings over default settings), Linux .d/ drop-in directories, and browser user scripts.

Alternative Solutions

Option A: Warn before overwriting user-modified files — at least prevents silent data loss, even without solving the merge problem.

Option B: Show a diff and prompt for merge on update — similar to how Debian's dpkg handles .conf file conflicts.

Option C: A user-overrides/ directory inside the plugin install that /plugin is instructed never to touch.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

No response

Additional Context

No response

extent analysis

TL;DR

Implement a user override layer to preserve customizations during plugin updates.

Guidance

  • Introduce a parallel directory (e.g., ~/.claude/plugins-user/) to store user-modified files, which take precedence over the original plugin files at load time.
  • Update the /plugin update mechanism to only modify the ~/.claude/plugins/ directory, leaving the user layer intact.
  • Consider implementing a warning or diff prompt before overwriting user-modified files as an alternative solution.
  • Evaluate the feasibility of incorporating a user-overrides/ directory within the plugin install, which the /plugin update would never touch.

Example

No code snippet is provided due to the lack of specific implementation details in the issue.

Notes

The proposed solution and alternatives aim to address the issue of silent overwriting of user customizations during plugin updates. However, the implementation details and potential conflicts with existing functionality are not explicitly discussed in the issue.

Recommendation

Apply the proposed user override layer workaround to preserve customizations during plugin updates, as it seems to be the most comprehensive solution addressing the issue.

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claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [FEATURE] Plugin user override layer — preserve local customizations across plugin updates [1 participants]