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[BUG] /skills command doesn't find skills in symlinked directories #14836

Description

@kchristidis

Preflight Checklist

  • I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
  • I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

The /skills command doesn't detect skills when the skill directory is a symlink. Running /skills shows "No skills found" even though the skill is correctly loaded and usable by the model.

What Should Happen?

/skills should follow symlinks when scanning ~/.claude/skills/ and .claude/skills/ directories, finding SKILL.md files inside symlinked skill directories.

Error Messages/Logs

> /skills
Skills
No skills found

No skills found. Skills are specialized prompts that extend Claude capabilities.

Create skills in .claude/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a skill directory outside ~/.claude/skills/
mkdir -p ~/my-skills/sourcegraph
cat > ~/my-skills/sourcegraph/SKILL.md << 'EOF'                                       ---
name: sourcegraph                                                                     description: Search codebase via Sourcegraph
allowed-tools: Bash                                                                   ---
# Sourcegraph Skill
EOF
  1. Symlink it into ~/.claude/skills/
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
ln -s ~/my-skills/sourcegraph ~/.claude/skills/sourcegraph
  1. Verify the symlink resolves correctly
find -L ~/.claude/skills -name "*.md"   # outputs: ~/.claude/skills/sourcegraph/SKILL.md
find ~/.claude/skills -name "*.md"      # outputs nothing (no -L flag)
  1. Run /skills in Claude Code - shows "No skills found"

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

No response

Claude Code Version

2.0.73

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

No response

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    area:corebugSomething isn't workinghas reproHas detailed reproduction stepsplatform:macosIssue specifically occurs on macOS

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