plugin.json: non-standard 'skills': './' field causes 'failed to load' across every pack

[maxosetskyy-hash]

Bug

Pack plugin.json files contain a non-standard "skills": "./" field that Claude Code interprets as a relative path and rejects as an escape attempt. After a seemingly successful install, claude plugin list shows:

Status: ✘ failed to load
Error: Path escapes plugin directory: ./ (skills)

Root cause

The skills field is not in the Claude Code plugin.json schema. The spec only allows: name, version, description, author, repository, homepage, license, keywords. Claude Code's validator treats unknown path-shaped values as relative paths and considers ./ an escape.

Skills auto-discovery works fine without this field — Claude Code automatically scans SKILL.md files inside the pack directory.

Scope

This affects every pack + many individual plugins in the marketplace. Confirmed via grep -rn '"skills": "\./"' ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-code-skills — at least 30 plugin.json files contain this bug, including:

• business-growth/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• product-team/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• finance/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• c-level-advisor/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• project-management/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• ra-qm-team/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• engineering-team/.claude-plugin/plugin.json (pack-level)
• Plus at least 20+ individual plugins inside those directories

During a 2026-04-14 install session, both marketing-skills@claude-code-skills and business-growth-skills@claude-code-skills installed without errors but showed failed to load in claude plugin list until the cached plugin.json files were patched.

Required fix

Remove the "skills": "./" line from every affected plugin.json:

// Before
{
  "name": "business-growth",
  ...
  "skills": "./"
}

// After
{
  "name": "business-growth",
  ...
}

Skills auto-discovery will continue to work.

Workaround for users hitting this now

Critical: patching the marketplace clone does NOT fix this — Claude Code already copied the broken plugin.json to its cache during install. Users must patch the cache copy:

~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-code-skills/<plugin-name>/<version>/.claude-plugin/plugin.json

After removing the skills line, run claude plugin list to confirm ✔ enabled. No reinstall needed.

Environment

• Claude Code CLI (user scope install)
• macOS 15.x (Darwin 25.2.0)
• Marketplace added via claude plugin marketplace add alirezarezvani/claude-skills
• Affected versions: 2.1.2 (marketing-skills, business-growth-skills) — almost certainly earlier versions too

[triceras]

Confirming this is still present in the latest published versions (2026-04-18 install). Reproduction:

$ grep -l '"skills": "\./"' ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-code-skills/{engineering-skills,engineering-advanced-skills,marketing-skills,self-improving-agent}/*/.claude-plugin/plugin.json

Plugin	Latest published version	Still has "skills": "./"
engineering-skills	2.2.0	yes
engineering-advanced-skills	2.3.0	yes
marketing-skills	2.1.2	yes
self-improving-agent	2.3.0	yes

claude plugin list reports Status: ✘ failed to load — Path escapes plugin directory: ./ (skills) for all four after a fresh claude plugin update.

Confirming the workaround in the OP works as described — deleting the "skills": "./" line from the cached plugin.json flips the plugin to ✔ enabled on next claude plugin list with no reinstall needed. For comparison, marketplaces that load cleanly (e.g. everything-claude-code) either omit the field or use "skills": ["./skills/"] pointing at a real subdirectory.

Would a PR removing the "skills": "./" line from each affected plugin.json in the marketplace source be welcome? Happy to draft one if so.

[zdoyle]

Still reproduces on v2.1.2. Claude Code reports:

Plugin (marketing-skills @ marketing-skills@claude-code-skills): Path escapes plugin directory: ./ (skills)

Root cause: Claude Code's manifest path validator rejects "./" because it normalizes to the plugin root itself, which fails the "must be inside plugin directory" check.

Suggested fix — move each skill into a skills/ subdirectory so the layout becomes:

marketing-skills/
  plugin.json
  skills/
    copywriting/SKILL.md
    seo-audit/SKILL.md
    ... (all 44 skills)
  README.md
  CLAUDE.md

Then either drop the skills field from plugin.json entirely (Claude Code defaults to skills/) or set it explicitly:

"skills": "skills"

That clears the path validation and matches the convention used by other plugin marketplaces. The .zip packaging and directory structure inside each skill can stay identical — only the nesting level changes.

Happy to open a PR if that helps.