[FEATURE] Claude Code sessions cannot publish/update skills to the account Skills store - expose the Chat surface's "Save skill" flow

[dannybyrnes]

Problem

Custom skills now live in the account-level cloud Skills store, and the Chat/Cowork surface has a first-class publish loop: the agent edits a skill, the chat renders a skill card, and the user clicks Save skill -> Upload and replace. Done.

Claude Code desktop sessions have no equivalent. The model can READ materialized cloud skills (skills-plugin cache) and prepare an updated SKILL.md, but has no path to publish it:

• No present_files / skill-card tool in the Claude Code toolset, so the desktop client never renders a Save-skill card.
• The Skills page upload dialog requires the OS file picker (not automatable, by design).
• Driving claude.ai/customize/skills via Claude-in-Chrome reaches the page's file input, but file_upload (correctly) only accepts user-attached files - agent-staged paths are rejected.
• Filesystem skills don't appear on the Skills page at all (Desktop app Skills panel doesn't show local skills from ~/.claude/skills/ #43095), so there's no "promote local skill to cloud" path either.

Net effect: a Claude Code session that learns something worth folding into a skill must hand off to a separate Chat conversation (e.g. via the skill's "Edit with Claude") just for the final publish click - a full context switch, and the Chat agent re-does an edit the Code session already made, for what is one click on the other surface.

User story

A heavy Claude Code user maintains ~12 custom skills (consulting dev workflows) in the cloud store so colleagues receive live-updated shares. Standing instruction to Claude: every "remember this" should also update the matching skill. Today that means: Claude Code drafts the new SKILL.md -> stages a file -> user opens Chat -> pastes a hand-off prompt -> Chat re-applies the edit -> user clicks Save skill -> confirms replace. Two agents, two contexts, one edit.

Request

Expose the skill publish/update primitive to Claude Code desktop sessions - any of:

1. present_files (or a dedicated save_skill tool) wired to the same Save-skill card the Chat client already renders, or
2. a "Save as skill / Replace existing skill" affordance on .skill files produced inside a Claude Code session, or
3. an authenticated local-harness API to upsert an account skill, keeping the same replace-confirmation UX.

Related

#43095 (filesystem skills invisible on the Skills page), #46836 / #46844 (Save-and-Replace staleness), #50041 (present_files file access).

Environment: Claude Code desktop app, macOS, account-level skills (2026-06-12).

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. skill-creator: packaging step skipped in Claude Code due to present_files gate #36438
2. Feature Request: API for syncing skills between Claude Code and Claude Chat/Projects #47968
3. [FEATURE] Skill management is fragmented and confusing #53889

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[dannybyrnes]

Not a duplicate.

[HBPerfumery]

Title: Claude's direct edits to /mnt/skills/user/[skill]/SKILL.md during a session don't persist back to the account-level Skill

Description: When Claude edits a personal skill's SKILL.md file directly via its file-editing tools during a conversation (not through the Skills panel UI), the edit is not reflected in the Skills panel afterward — the change appears to only modify an ephemeral session-local copy of the mounted file, not the actual stored Skill object. This is effectively the inverse of issue #65928 (panel edits not syncing to the mount) — here, a mount edit doesn't sync back to the panel/account.

Repro:

Have Claude use its file-editing tool to add content to an existing personal skill's SKILL.md in /mnt/skills/user/
Confirm the edit succeeded in that session (re-view the file)
Open Settings → Customize → Skills → the same skill
The added content is not present

Impact: Claude has no reliable way to durably update a user's skill mid-conversation, and gave the user false confidence that an edit was permanent when it wasn't.