Issue Station
Sign In
Tools hereToolbox

claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Skills from marketplace plugins not activated after installation (missing copy to ~/.claude/skills/)

Official PRs (…)
ON THIS PAGE

Recommended Tools

×6

Utilities matched from this issue’s tags and category — try them while you read without losing context.

GitHub issue graph ai analysis

Paste a GitHub issue URL. We fetch that issue, discover linked issues from bodies/comments/timeline, collect linked pull requests, and produce a structured English report.

The report is written in English Markdown for sharing and archival.

Helpful · Quick feedback

Loading…

Skills installed via the Claude Code Desktop marketplace are not activated. Plugin files are downloaded correctly, but the step that should make skills available (copying to ~/.claude/skills/) does not occur. As a result, only skill-creator — installed during initial setup — works. All other plugin skills are silently inactive.

Root Cause

The plugin installation process has two steps, but only the first occurs:

  1. ✅ Plugin download → files saved to ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/
  2. ❌ Skill activation → copy to ~/.claude/skills/ does not happen

The initial auto-install (run once on first setup, flag officialMarketplaceAutoInstalled: true) correctly copied skill-creator, but subsequent installations via the UI do not replicate this behavior.

Fix Action

Workaround

Manually copy any skill from the marketplace directory to ~/.claude/skills/. After restarting Claude Code, the skill becomes available.

# Enable all skills from a specific plugin (PowerShell)
$plugin = "plugin-dev"
$src = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\plugins\marketplaces\claude-plugins-official\plugins\$plugin\skills"
$dst = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills"
Get-ChildItem $src | ForEach-Object {
    Copy-Item -Recurse -Force $_.FullName $dst
}

Code Example

~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-plugins-official/plugins/<plugin>/skills/<skill>/

---

# Enable all skills from a specific plugin (PowerShell)
$plugin = "plugin-dev"
$src = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\plugins\marketplaces\claude-plugins-official\plugins\$plugin\skills"
$dst = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills"
Get-ChildItem $src | ForEach-Object {
    Copy-Item -Recurse -Force $_.FullName $dst
}
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Summary

Skills installed via the Claude Code Desktop marketplace are not activated. Plugin files are downloaded correctly, but the step that should make skills available (copying to ~/.claude/skills/) does not occur. As a result, only skill-creator — installed during initial setup — works. All other plugin skills are silently inactive.

Environment

How the Skills System Works

Claude Code loads skills from two sources:

  1. Built-in skills (hardcoded in the binary)
  2. ~/.claude/skills/ directory — locally installed skills, read at each startup

The marketplace downloads plugins to:

~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-plugins-official/plugins/<plugin>/skills/<skill>/

But this location is not read by the system. For a plugin skill to work, it must be in ~/.claude/skills/.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open Claude Code Desktop
  2. Go to the marketplace and install any plugin that contains skills (e.g., plugin-dev, mcp-server-dev)
  3. Restart Claude Code
  4. Try to invoke any skill from the installed plugin

Expected: The skill is available and can be invoked
Actual: The skill does not appear — only built-in skills and skill-creator are available

Root Cause

The plugin installation process has two steps, but only the first occurs:

  1. ✅ Plugin download → files saved to ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/
  2. ❌ Skill activation → copy to ~/.claude/skills/ does not happen

The initial auto-install (run once on first setup, flag officialMarketplaceAutoInstalled: true) correctly copied skill-creator, but subsequent installations via the UI do not replicate this behavior.

Affected Plugins / Skills

The following plugins exist in ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/ with skills that should be active but are not:

PluginSkills
mcp-server-devbuild-mcp-server, build-mcp-app, build-mcpb
plugin-devagent-development, command-development, hook-development, mcp-integration, plugin-settings, plugin-structure, skill-development
claude-code-setupclaude-automation-recommender
claude-md-managementclaude-md-improver
playgroundplayground
hookifywriting-rules
frontend-designfrontend-design
math-olympiadmath-olympiad
session-reportsession-report

User-installed plugins (discord, telegram, fakechat, imessage) are registered in .claude.json but their skills are also not loaded.

Possibly Related: Feature Flags Disabled

Two server-side feature flags are false for this account and may be blocking plugin skill loading:

FlagValue
tengu_skills_dashboard_enabledfalse
claude_code_skills_dashboard_enabled_clifalse

Workaround

Manually copy any skill from the marketplace directory to ~/.claude/skills/. After restarting Claude Code, the skill becomes available.

# Enable all skills from a specific plugin (PowerShell)
$plugin = "plugin-dev"
$src = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\plugins\marketplaces\claude-plugins-official\plugins\$plugin\skills"
$dst = "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills"
Get-ChildItem $src | ForEach-Object {
    Copy-Item -Recurse -Force $_.FullName $dst
}

Expected Fix

The installation step should copy skill directories from ~/.claude/plugins/.../skills/ to ~/.claude/skills/ whenever a plugin is installed via the Desktop UI — mirroring what the initial auto-install does for skill-creator.

Vote matrix · Quick signals

Works
Did the solution work? Tap to confirm.
Easy Fix
Was it a quick fix?
Time Saver
Did it save you time?
Blocking
Was it severely blocking?
Common Issue
Are others likely hitting this too?
Flaky / Intermittent
Is it intermittent?
Verified / Reproducible
Can you reproduce it reliably?
Loading…
#installation#tokenizer error#prompt formatting#chain error#conversation history

Still need to ship something?

×6

Another batch ranked right after the header list — different links, same matching logic.

Back to top recommendations

TRENDING

claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Skills from marketplace plugins not activated after installation (missing copy to ~/.claude/skills/)