Skip to content

[BUG] Plugin enable/disable ignored - all skills loaded regardless of settings #13344

@kylesnowschwartz

Description

@kylesnowschwartz

Preflight Checklist

  • I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • I can reproduce this bug with the latest version of Claude Code

Bug Description

tl;dr - plugins need individual folders and individual .claude-plugin/plugin.json to be respected.

When a marketplace defines multiple plugins from the same source directory, disabling one plugin has no effect - all skills from the entire directory are loaded regardless of enable/disable settings.

Reproduction

marketplace.json (from anthropic-agent-skills):

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "document-skills",
      "source": "./",
      "skills": ["./skills/xlsx", "./skills/docx", "./skills/pptx", "./skills/pdf"]
    },
    {
      "name": "example-skills", 
      "source": "./",
      "skills": [
        "./skills/algorithmic-art",
        "./skills/brand-guidelines",
        "./skills/canvas-design",
        ... (12 skills total)
      ]
    }
  ]
}

settings.json:

{
  "enabledPlugins": {
    "example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills": false,  // DISABLED
    "document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills": true
  }
}

Expected: Only xlsx, docx, pptx, pdf skills loaded (the 4 from document-skills)

Actual: ALL 16 skills loaded, including document-skills:algorithmic-art, document-skills:canvas-design, etc. from the disabled example-skills plugin

Root Cause Analysis

The skills array in marketplace.json appears to be completely ignored. Claude Code seems to:

  1. See that document-skills is enabled with source: "./"
  2. Recursively scan the entire ./ directory for any SKILL.md files
  3. Load everything it finds, ignoring the explicit skills array whitelist

Impact

  1. Plugin settings are meaningless - Users can't control which skills are loaded
  2. Contributes to skill truncation - Extra unwanted skills push useful skills past the 30-skill limit (see [BUG] Skills truncated at 30 makes remaining skills undiscoverable #13343)
  3. Confusing UI - Plugins appear as separate items in the UI but toggling them does nothing
  4. Broken architecture - The marketplace.json schema implies fine-grained control that doesn't exist

Environment

  • Claude Code version: 2.0.60 (Homebrew)
  • OS: macOS
  • Affected marketplace: anthropic-agent-skills (but likely affects any marketplace with multiple plugins sharing a source directory)

Expected Behavior

Either:

  1. Respect the skills array - Only load skills explicitly listed for enabled plugins
  2. Or require separate source directories - If sharing source directories isn't supported, enforce separate directories per plugin

Workaround

None currently. Disabling plugins in settings.json has no effect.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

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

    Type

    No type
    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions