macOS - Installing via marketplace does not work in claude code VSC Extension or terminal

[brcego]

Installed following instructions from marketplace directly :

Closed terminal, opened as per instructions showing enabled:

Not appearing as skill/plugin that I can use with /seo-geo (or any / command at all):

Same for VSC extension, appearing as plugin:

But not actually existing/able to use (Installed on user level):

[brcego]

Was able to troubleshoot and fix with claude, here's the summary, but TL:DR is that this needs fixing to work properly for future update.

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Bug: Marketplace-installed plugin shows "(no content)" when invoked via /seo-geo

Diagnosis

After installing seo-geo from the marketplace via /plugin → Discover → Install for you (user scope), the plugin:

• Shows as installed and enabled under /plugin → Installed
• Appears as a slash command /seo-geo in the CLI
• But displays "(no content)" when invoked

Root Cause

The marketplace plugin system and the Claude Code skill loader use two separate file paths and are not fully wired together:

System | Path | Purpose -- | -- | -- Marketplace (plugin installer) | ~/.claude/plugins/cache/opc-skills/seo-geo/1.0.0/ | Stores plugin files, tracks version in installed_plugins.json Skill loader (runtime) | ~/.claude/skills/seo-geo/ | Where Claude Code actually reads SKILL.md at runtime

The marketplace correctly downloads the plugin to the cache directory and registers it in installed_plugins.json, but never creates a symlink (or copy) in ~/.claude/skills/, which is where the skill loader expects to find it. This means the UI detects the plugin, but the runtime has no content to inject.

For comparison, installing via npx skills correctly creates both:

• ~/.agents/skills/seo-geo/ (source files)
• ~/.claude/skills/seo-geo → symlink to source

Workaround

Manually create the missing symlink:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
ln -s /Users/$USER/.claude/plugins/cache/opc-skills/seo-geo/1.0.0 ~/.claude/skills/seo-geo

Then restart Claude Code. The /seo-geo command works correctly after this.

Note: This workaround uses an absolute path to a versioned directory (1.0.0). If the marketplace updates the plugin to a new version (e.g., 1.1.0), the symlink would need to be manually re-pointed.

Suggested Fix

The marketplace plugin installer should, after downloading to the cache, also create the appropriate symlink in the agent's skills directory (e.g., ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>) — the same way npx skills add --agent claude-code does. This would close the gap between plugin registration (UI awareness) and skill loading (runtime availability).

Ideally the symlink should point to a version-agnostic path or be updated automatically when the plugin is updated via the marketplace.

Environment

• Claude Code v2.1.50
• macOS (Darwin 24.6.0)
• Plugin: seo-geo@opc-skills v1.0.0

[Jing-yilin]

Thanks @brcego for the detailed diagnosis and workaround — really appreciate the thorough investigation.

You're right. This is a Claude Code marketplace installer bug, not something we can fix on our end. The marketplace downloads files to ~/.claude/plugins/cache/ but never creates the symlink in ~/.claude/skills/ that the runtime needs. That's a gap in Claude Code's plugin lifecycle.

[github-actions]

✅ This issue has been automatically closed because PR #58 was merged.

PR Title: fix(install): replace curl install.sh with npx skills add
PR Link: #58