Plugin skills not discovered when .claude/ directory exists in plugin

[devseunggwan]

Bug Description

When a Claude Code plugin contains a .claude/ directory (for settings, hooks, etc.), the plugin's skills/ root directory is completely ignored during skill discovery. Skills are not loaded with the pluginName:skillName prefix.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a plugin with:

   • .claude-plugin/plugin.json (standard plugin manifest)
   • skills/my-skill/SKILL.md (plugin skills at root)
   • .claude/settings.json (project-level settings/hooks)

2. Install the plugin: claude plugin install <plugin>

3. Run /reload-plugins — skills from skills/ are not loaded

4. Remove .claude/ directory from the plugin cache

5. Run /reload-plugins — skills from skills/ are now loaded with pluginName: prefix

Expected Behavior

Plugin skills in skills/ should be discovered regardless of whether .claude/ directory exists. The .claude/ directory is used for settings/hooks and should coexist with plugin skills.

Actual Behavior

When .claude/ directory is present in a plugin, the skills/ root directory is ignored. Only .claude/skills/ is searched for skills (if it exists).

Evidence

Tested with 5 plugins on Claude Code v2.1.92:

Plugin	.claude/ dir	Skills loaded?
oh-my-claudecode (4.10.2)	❌ absent	✅ Yes
my-skills (1.3.0)	❌ absent	✅ Yes
scheduler (0.2.0)	❌ absent	✅ Yes
codex (1.0.2)	❌ absent	✅ Yes
laplace-dev-hub (1.9.0)	✅ present	❌ No

All plugins use the same skills/<name>/SKILL.md structure with identical frontmatter format.

What I've tried (none worked)

1. Adding "skills": "./skills/" to .claude-plugin/plugin.json
2. Removing .claude/skills/ subdirectory while keeping .claude/
3. Creating symlink .claude/skills -> ../skills

Workaround

None found. The .claude/ directory contains essential settings and hooks that cannot be removed.

Timeline

• Skills worked when plugin only had skills/ (no .claude/ dir) — Feb 13, 2026
• Skills stopped working after .claude/ directory was added — ~Feb 25, 2026

Environment

• Claude Code: v2.1.92
• macOS Darwin 25.2.0
• Plugin installed via marketplace (scope: user)

[github-actions]

Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant.

[johnzfitch]

@claude reopen

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.