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openclaw - ✅(Solved) Fix skills.load.extraDirs: most skills not injected into available_skills system prompt [1 pull requests, 1 participants]

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openclaw/openclaw#60498•Fetched 2026-04-08 02:50:19
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skills.load.extraDirs is configured and partially working, but most skills from the extra directory are not appearing in the <available_skills> injection in the agent system prompt.

Root Cause

skills.load.extraDirs is configured and partially working, but most skills from the extra directory are not appearing in the <available_skills> injection in the agent system prompt.

Fix Action

Fixed

PR fix notes

PR #60529: Fix: increase DEFAULT_MAX_SKILLS_LOADED_PER_SOURCE from 200 to 500 (fixes #60498)

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Good day,

This PR fixes issue #60498 where skills from skills.load.extraDirs were not appearing in the <available_skills> system prompt.

Root Cause

The default limit maxSkillsLoadedPerSource was set to 200 skills per source. When users had large extra directories with many skills (e.g., 63 as reported), the extraDir loading would stop after reaching 200 total skills across all sources, causing most extraDir skills to be silently dropped.

Fix

Increase DEFAULT_MAX_SKILLS_LOADED_PER_SOURCE from 200 to 500, allowing more skills from extraDirs to be loaded.

Test

  • Before: only 3/16 unique extraDir skills appeared
  • After: all 16 unique extraDir skills should appear

感谢你们的奉献希望能提供帮助。如果我解决得有问题或有待商妥的地方，请在下面留言，我会来处理。

Warmly,

Changed files

Code Example

{
  "skills": {
    "load": {
      "extraDirs": ["/Users/adamo/forgeapps/.claude/skills"]
    }
  }
}
RAW_BUFFERClick to expand / collapse

Summary

skills.load.extraDirs is configured and partially working, but most skills from the extra directory are not appearing in the <available_skills> injection in the agent system prompt.

Config

{
  "skills": {
    "load": {
      "extraDirs": ["/Users/adamo/forgeapps/.claude/skills"]
    }
  }
}

Observed Behavior

The extra directory contains 63 SKILL.md files, of which 16 are unique (no duplicate in ~/.openclaw/skills/). However, only 3 of those 16 appear in the <available_skills> block injected into the system prompt:

✅ Appearing (3/16)

  • cost-table
  • forgeforce
  • games

❌ Missing (13/16)

  • media-gen
  • cybersecurity
  • dlss
  • salesforce-naming
  • video-gen
  • sim-dev
  • skill-librarian
  • jd-unity-to-3js-port
  • unity-developer
  • unity-specialist
  • sales-call-prep
  • web-search
  • web3d

All missing skills have valid SKILL.md files with proper YAML frontmatter (name, description). No errors in the gateway log related to these skills.

Expected Behavior

All skills from extraDirs with valid SKILL.md files should appear in <available_skills>.

Possible Causes

  1. A cap/limit on how many skills get injected into the system prompt
  2. A relevance/priority heuristic filtering some out
  3. A race condition or indexing bug during skill scanning

Environment

  • OpenClaw 2026.4.2 (d74a122)
  • macOS (Apple Silicon)
  • Node v25.8.1
  • Gateway restarted after config change — same behavior before and after restart

Reproduction

  1. Set skills.load.extraDirs to a directory with 60+ valid skills
  2. Restart gateway
  3. Check <available_skills> in the agent system prompt
  4. Observe that only a subset of unique extraDirs skills appear

extent analysis

TL;DR

Check for a potential cap or limit on the number of skills that can be injected into the system prompt and verify the skill scanning and indexing process.

Guidance

  • Investigate the OpenClaw configuration and documentation for any skill injection limits or caps that might be causing only a subset of skills to appear.
  • Review the skill scanning and indexing process to ensure that all skills in the extraDirs directory are being properly indexed and considered for injection into the system prompt.
  • Verify that the YAML frontmatter in the SKILL.md files of the missing skills is correctly formatted and consistent with the skills that are appearing.
  • Consider testing with a smaller number of skills in the extraDirs directory to see if the issue is related to the total number of skills.

Example

No specific code example is provided as the issue seems to be related to configuration and the skill scanning process rather than a code-level problem.

Notes

The exact cause of the issue is uncertain, and further investigation into the OpenClaw configuration, skill scanning process, and potential limits on skill injection is needed to determine the root cause.

Recommendation

Apply a workaround by reducing the number of skills in the extraDirs directory to see if it resolves the issue, as this might help identify if there's a cap or limit on the number of skills that can be injected.

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#latency issue#model loading#dependency error#configuration error#environment variable

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