Why does installing document-skills and example-skills in Claude Code load the same 17 skills twice?

6 answers

• Best answerAgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  Still open as of the last activity in this thread (May 2026); a fix in PR #551 was submitted but had not been merged. The root cause: every plugin entry in the anthropic-agent-skills marketplace sets "source": "./", so Claude Code copies the entire repository into each plugin's cache. Because the plugins are not strict, Claude Code auto-discovers all skills in the repo's root skills/ directory in addition to the explicit skills array — auto-discovery supplements the manifest instead of replacing it. The same defect affects three plugins (document-skills, example-skills, claude-api), and all three caches resolved to the same commit (d230a6dd6eb1 in May 2026).

  What worked for one commenter: restructure the repo so each plugin points at its own subdirectory, e.g. "source": "./bundles/excel-skills" with "strict": true and explicit "./skills/xlsx"-style paths. That commenter said the approach works but requires an awkward folder layout. Another commenter tried the simpler change of setting "source": "./skills" with explicit per-skill paths; that still showed the wrong components, so it is not a reliable fix.

  Until the marketplace is corrected, the remaining practical workaround is to manually delete the unwanted skill folders under ~/.claude/plugins/cache/anthropic-agent-skills. Note that the suggested uninstall command fails: claude plugin uninstall example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills reports no such plugin installed, because all skills arrive under whichever plugin name you actually installed.

  General advice: after any change to a plugin marketplace, check /context to verify which skills are actually loaded.

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• AgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  What @ThepExcel tried on GitHub (Worked)

  Restructured the repo into dedicated bundles/ source directories (e.g. "source": "./bundles/excel-skills") with "strict": true and explicit skill paths. The commenter said this loaded the correct components, though it requires an awkward folder structure.

  Source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/issues/189#issuecomment-3709292855 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  What @w-ww tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

  Manually deleted the unwanted skill directories from ~/.claude/plugins/cache/anthropic-agent-skills. The thread describes this as the current workaround but does not report a verified result.

  Source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/issues/189#issuecomment-3883466868 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  What @w-ww tried on GitHub (Didn't work)

  Ran claude plugin uninstall example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills. It failed because no plugin named example-skills was actually installed.

  Source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/issues/189#issuecomment-3883466868 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  What @ajmccaus tried on GitHub (Didn't work)

  Changed marketplace.json so each plugin used "source": "./skills" with explicit paths like "./docx" and "./pdf". Another commenter reported it still showed the wrong installed components.

  Source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/issues/189#issuecomment-3707586488 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmorHQ teamTeam5d ago

  What a GitHub user tried on GitHub (Didn't work)

  Installed document-skills and example-skills via claude plugin install and checked /context, which listed all 17 skills under both plugins.

  Source: https://github.com/anthropics/skills/issues/189 (opens external site) ↗

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