Skills CLI installs to ~/.agents/skills/ but Claude Code reads from ~/.claude/skills/

[nbouron]

Skills CLI installs to ~/.agents/skills/ but Claude Code reads from ~/.claude/skills/

Problem

When installing skills using npx skills add techtown-fr/skills, they are placed in ~/.agents/skills/ following the Agent Skills Specification.

However, Claude Code cannot load skills from this directory — it only reads from ~/.claude/skills/.

This means the recommended installation command:

npx skills add techtown-fr/skills

Results in skills being installed to a location that Claude Code ignores completely.

Expected Behavior

For TechTown's Claude Code training program, skills should either:

1. Be installed to ~/.claude/skills/ directly, or
2. Include documentation/script to copy from ~/.agents/skills/ to ~/.claude/skills/, or
3. Clarify that an extra step is required for Claude Code users

Current Workaround

Users must manually copy skills:

cp -r ~/.agents/skills/* ~/.claude/skills/

This is not documented and creates confusion for trainees.

Root Cause

• The Skills CLI (by Vercel Labs) installs to ~/.agents/skills/ to follow the open agent standard
• Claude Code is designed to only read skills from ~/.claude/skills/ for security/isolation
• TechTown recommends the Vercel Skills CLI without accounting for this incompatibility

Impact

• Skills installed during training appear to work but are silently ignored by Claude Code
• Trainees don't realize their installed skills aren't actually available
• Creates confusion in the learning experience

Suggested Solutions

Option A: Post-install script

npx skills add techtown-fr/skills && cp -r ~/.agents/skills/* ~/.claude/skills/

Option B: Custom TechTown CLI
Create a TechTown-specific installation tool that targets ~/.claude/skills/ directly

Option C: Documentation
Update README to explain the manual copying step

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Related Links

• Agent Skills Specification
• Skills CLI Repository
• Claude Code Skills Documentation