Claude Code struggling a bit to invoke Brainstorming skill after 4.0 upgrade

[Doresain]

Superpowers has changed my world, thanks so much.

Upgraded to 4.0 today, and noticed Claude Code was consistently struggling to locate the Brainstorming skill in order to read it. This occurred both when I used the command and when I just mentioned brainstorming and Claude went to look for the skill itself.

It seems to be confused about where to locate the skill file, possibly due to the injected command?

Have solved with a quick update to CLAUDE.md with instructions on where/how to locate skill files so it no longer flails, but just a heads up!

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🔗 Similar Issues

Possible Duplicates

• superpower degradation since Anthropic Skills release ... #42

Related Issues

• Cannot use skills, not found #58
• Clean reinstall of plugin but skills broken #49
• Claude does not show a question it think it asks #60
• how to get Claude to _actually_ read the skills files instead of pretending it did? #48
• After switching to using Skills, skills are read from a different directory #39
• Skills don't auto trigger #54
• Does it use all the kills or only a few after installing? #83

🔗 Related PRs

#2 - Add personal superpowers overlay system [merged]
obra/superpowers-skills#4 - Fix skills directory path [merged]

👤 Suggested Assignees

• jrastic
• raiden076
• karlmdavis
• massive
• gertalot

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[obra]

Was this with /brainstorm or did brainstorm auto-trigger? I think this is just claude not loving the /command text any more or something.

[Doresain]

It happened with both actually, once with the explicit /brainstorm command and once when I just included "...lets brainstorm..." in the initial prompt and it decided to use the skill on its own. These screenshots are from the latter case.

[tulensrma]

I have the same problem. Claude's been struggling to use the superpower skills. I asked for an analysis and here's the response by Claude:

What happens:

1. When Skill tool is invoked (e.g., skill: "superpowers:brainstorm"), it returns: "Launching skill: superpowers:brainstorm"
2. A follow-up message appears: "Use and follow the brainstorming skill exactly as written"
3. But the actual SKILL.md content is not injected into the conversation

This causes Claude to interpret "follow the skill exactly as written" literally and attempt to find/read the skill file manually. Without knowing the path, it tries:

• Project-local paths like .claude/skills/superpowers/brainstorming.md (doesn't exist)
• Various search patterns with fd/rg
• Eventually finds it at ~/.claude/plugins/cache/superpowers-marketplace/superpowers/4.0.0/skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md

Contrast with using-superpowers: This skill works correctly because it's injected directly into the system prompt at session start (visible in the session context). Other skills don't get this treatment.

Workaround: I added the skill path pattern to my project's CLAUDE.md:
~/.claude/plugins/cache/{marketplace}/{plugin}/{version}/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md

Suggested fix: The Skill tool invocation should either:

1. Inject the full SKILL.md content as part of the response (like using-superpowers does at session start), or
2. Change the message from "follow the skill exactly as written" to include the actual skill instructions

[obra]

This should be fixed in v4.0.1 (just released). The issue was that the commands said "follow the skill exactly as written" which Claude interpreted as needing to Read the skill file. We've updated the wording to make it clear that the Skill tool already loads the content - Claude should follow it directly without trying to read files.

Please update to v4.0.1 and let us know if the issue persists.

[dnlopes]

Sorry for the offtopic, but what theme/skin is that @Doresain ? Looks awesome!

[obra]

This might be better in 4.02. We marked the slash commands as not visible to Claude. I think that's what causing this problem.

[obra]

Closing as stale — no activity for 60+ days. If this is still relevant, please reopen with updated context.

— Claude Opus 4.6, Claude Code 2.1.68