document-skills and example-skills plugins install identical content, causing duplicate skills

[chuggies510]

Description

When installing both document-skills and example-skills plugins from anthropic-agent-skills, they contain identical skills, causing duplicates in Claude Code's context window.

Expected Behavior

According to the repo README:

• document-skills should contain only the production document skills (docx, pdf, pptx, xlsx)
• example-skills should contain the open-source educational examples (algorithmic-art, canvas-design, etc.)

Actual Behavior

Both plugins install all 17 skills from the skills/ directory:

=== document-skills ===
algorithmic-art, brand-guidelines, canvas-design, doc-coauthoring, docx,
frontend-design, internal-comms, mcp-builder, pdf, pptx, skill-creator,
slack-gif-creator, theme-factory, web-artifacts-builder, webapp-testing, xlsx

=== example-skills ===
(identical list)

Both use the same commit hash in the cache (69c0b1a06741).

Impact

• ~50k wasted tokens on duplicate skill definitions
• Skills like pptx (6.3k tokens) appear twice in /context
• Reduces available context for actual work

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Claude Code
2. Run: claude plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
3. Run: claude plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
4. Run /context in Claude Code
5. Observe duplicate skills in the "Plugin" section

Environment

• Claude Code v2.0.76
• macOS 15.6.1
• Both plugins installed at user scope

Suggested Fix

The plugin packaging should respect the intended separation, or the marketplace should only expose one unified plugin that contains all skills without duplication.

Workaround

Uninstall one of the duplicate plugins:

claude plugin uninstall example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

[ajmccaus]

I can second this issue. I am running the same version of Claude Code in Windows 11. I did some testing with my own local plugin repo and discovered the root cause, so this is a pattern to apply to any flat monorepo where you want to separate the skills into different installations. I also confirmed on this repo by adding using /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills, modifying ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/anthropic-agent-skills/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json as below, and loading it as normal using /plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills.

Solution for GitHub Issue #189: Duplicate Skills

Root Cause

When multiple plugins in a marketplace use "source": "./", each copies the entire repo and auto-discovers all default directories (/skills/, /agents/, /commands/). The custom paths in marketplace.json supplement auto-discovery rather than replacing it, so all skills load for every plugin.

Solution

Use component directories directly as plugin sources: And while we're at it, might as well add in the version field as well so it looks cleaner in the ~/.claude/plugins/cache/ directory.

Before (Broken)

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "document-skills",
      "description": "...",
      "source": "./",
      "strict": false,
      "skills": ["./skills/docx", "./skills/pdf, ..."]
    },
    {
      "name": "example-skills",
      "description": "...",
      "source": "./",
      "strict": false,
      "skills": ["./skills/algorithmic-art, ..."]
    }
  ]
}

Result: Both plugins load all skills due to auto-discovery.

After (Fixed)

{
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "document-skills",
      "description": "...",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "source": "./skills",
      "strict": false,
      "skills": ["./docx", "./pdf", "./pptx", "./xlsx"]
    },
    {
      "name": "example-skills",
      "description": "...",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "source": "./skills",
      "strict": false,
      "skills": ["./algorithmic-art", "./canvas-design"]
    }
  ]
}

Why This Works

1. "source": "./skills" copies only the skills directory to cache
2. Individual skill folders become the plugin root level (no /skills/ subdirectory)
3. Auto-discovery looks for /skills/ at root (doesn't exist)
4. Only explicitly listed skills load

Verification

After making the changes above, install using /plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills. Then check /context - and you should see only the 4 document skills. Try this again with example-skills and you should see the full skill set with /context.

[ThepExcel]

this approach still show wrong installed component.
my approach work better but requires very bad folder structure

"plugins": [
{
"name": "excel-skills",
"description": "Excel and Power Query skills for spreadsheet creation, formulas, formatting, and data transformation coaching",
"source": "./bundles/excel-skills",
"strict": true,
"skills": [
"./skills/xlsx",
"./skills/power-query-coaching"
]
},
{
"name": "research-education-skills",
"description": "Research and education skills for deep research with source verification and concept explanation",
"source": "./bundles/research-education-skills",
"strict": true,
"skills": [
"./skills/deep-research",
"./skills/explain-concepts"
]
}

[w-ww]

Same issue after run /plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
And claude plugin uninstall example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills doesn't work, as there is no plugin called example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills was installed.
Currently, the workaround is to manually delete the unnecessary skills in ~/.claude/plugins/cache/anthropic-agent-skills.

[drewburchfield]

Opened a fix for this in #551. The root cause is that all three plugins in marketplace.json set "source": "./", so Claude Code copies the entire repo into each plugin's cache. Moved skills into per-plugin subdirectories and updated the source paths to match.