claude-skills-troubleshooting

SKILL.md

Claude Skills Troubleshooting

Overview

Diagnose and resolve common Claude Code plugin and skill configuration issues. This skill provides systematic debugging workflows for plugin installation, enablement, and activation problems.

Quick Diagnosis

Run the diagnostic script to identify common issues:

python3 scripts/diagnose_plugins.py

The script checks:

Installed vs enabled plugins mismatch

Missing enabledPlugins entries in settings.json

Stale marketplace cache

Invalid plugin configurations

Common Issues

Issue 1: Plugin Installed But Not Showing in Available Skills

Symptoms:

/plugin shows plugin as installed

Skill not appearing in Skill tool's available list

Plugin metadata exists in installed_plugins.json

Root Cause: Known bug (GitHub #17832) - plugins are added to installed_plugins.json but NOT automatically added to enabledPlugins in settings.json.

Diagnosis:

# Check if plugin is in installed_plugins.json
cat ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json | grep "plugin-name"

# Check if plugin is enabled in settings.json
cat ~/.claude/settings.json | grep "plugin-name"

Solution:

# Option 1: Use CLI to enable
claude plugin enable plugin-name@marketplace-name

# Option 2: Manually edit settings.json
# Add to enabledPlugins section:
# "plugin-name@marketplace-name": true

Issue 2: Understanding Plugin State Architecture

Key files:

File
Purpose

~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json
Registry of ALL plugins (installed + disabled)

~/.claude/settings.json → enabledPlugins
Controls which plugins are ACTIVE

~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json
Registered marketplace sources

~/.claude/plugins/cache/
Actual plugin files

A plugin is active ONLY when:

Exists in installed_plugins.json (registered)

Listed in settings.json → enabledPlugins with value true

Issue 3: Marketplace Cache Stale

Symptoms:

GitHub has latest changes

Install finds plugin but gets old version

Newly added plugins not visible

Solution:

# Update marketplace cache
claude plugin marketplace update marketplace-name

# Or clear and re-fetch
rm -rf ~/.claude/plugins/cache/marketplace-name
claude plugin marketplace update marketplace-name

Issue 4: Plugin Not Found in Marketplace

Common causes (in order of likelihood):

Local changes not pushed to GitHub - Most common!

git status
git push
claude plugin marketplace update marketplace-name

marketplace.json configuration error

python3 -m json.tool .claude-plugin/marketplace.json

Skill directory missing

ls -la skill-name/SKILL.md

Diagnostic Commands Reference

Purpose
Command

List marketplaces
claude plugin marketplace list

Update marketplace
claude plugin marketplace update {name}

Install plugin
claude plugin install {plugin}@{marketplace}

Enable plugin
claude plugin enable {plugin}@{marketplace}

Disable plugin
claude plugin disable {plugin}@{marketplace}

Uninstall plugin
claude plugin uninstall {plugin}@{marketplace}

Check installed
cat ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json | jq '.plugins | keys'

Check enabled
cat ~/.claude/settings.json | jq '.enabledPlugins'

Batch Enable Missing Plugins

To enable all installed but disabled plugins from a marketplace:

python3 scripts/enable_all_plugins.py marketplace-name

Skills vs Commands Architecture

Claude Code has two types of user-invocable extensions:

Skills (in skills/ directory)

Auto-activated based on description matching

Loaded when user request matches skill description

Commands (in commands/ directory)

Explicitly invocable via /command-name

Appears in Skill tool's available list

Requires command file (e.g., commands/seer.md)

If a skill should be explicitly invocable, add a corresponding command file.

References

See references/known_issues.md for GitHub issue tracking

See references/architecture.md for detailed plugin architecture

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