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