taste-skill Path Mismatch: Why npx install Works but Claude Code Can't Find It

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The Problem: Install Succeeds But the Skill Disappears

I first installed taste-skill on my Ubuntu 24.04 machine. After running npx skills add https://github.com/leonxlnx/taste-skill, the terminal showed successful installation. npx skills list -g displayed design-taste-frontend correctly. But when I opened Claude Code and asked it to "use taste-skill", it said it could not find this skill.

I spent 30 minutes debugging before discovering this was a classic path mismatch issue, exactly matching a bug reported on the Claude Code GitHub issues page.

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Root Cause: Two Different Skills Directories

The taste-skill GitHub repository (⭐ 28,607 as of May 2026) explicitly documents this issue in its FAQ section:

> The npx skills add CLI writes to ~/.agents/skills/, but Claude Code exclusively reads from ~/.claude/skills/.

These two directories serve different purposes:

• `~/.agents/skills/` — Default install location for the npx skills CLI and other agent frameworks
• `~/.claude/skills/` — The only directory Claude Code recognizes and loads skills from

This explains why npx skills list -g works perfectly but Claude Code sees nothing. The skill is installed, just in the wrong place.

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Fix 1: Manual Symlink (Temporary Workaround)

My first approach was to manually create a symlink. This is what I did:

# Step 1: Verify the skill was actually installed
ls ~/.agents/skills/
# Output should show: taste-skill/

# Step 2: Create a symbolic link to Claude Code's skills directory
ln -s ~/.agents/skills/taste-skill ~/.claude/skills/taste-skill

# Step 3: Verify the symlink was created
ls -la ~/.claude/skills/

Then I restarted Claude Code. When I asked it "list skills", taste-skill finally appeared.

**Downside**: Every time I run npx skills add to install a new skill, I need to manually create a symlink. This is easy to forget and creates inconsistency across different agent frameworks.

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Fix 2: SessionStart Hook for Auto-Sync (Permanent Solution)

The proper fix is to configure a SessionStart hook in ~/.claude/settings.json. This automatically syncs skills every time Claude Code starts, regardless of which framework installed them.

{
  "sessions": {
    "SessionStart": [
      "bash -c 'for dir in ~/.agents/skills/*/; do [ -d \"$dir\" ] && ln -sf \"$dir\" ~/.claude/skills/ 2>/dev/null; done'"
    ]
  }
}

**How it works**: Each time Claude Code starts, the bash command iterates through all subdirectories in ~/.agents/skills/. For each valid directory found, it creates or refreshes a symlink in ~/.claude/skills/. The 2>/dev/null suppresses errors if the symlink already exists.

Benefits:

• New skills from any framework auto-sync on next Claude Code restart
• No manual steps required after installing
• Works with taste-skill, MCP servers, and other npx-based tools
• One-time configuration, permanent results

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taste-skill v1 vs v2: Which Should You Use?

The taste-skill project maintains two versions:

# Install v2 (default, experimental)
npx skills add design-taste-frontend

# Install v1 (stable, preserved for compatibility)
npx skills add design-taste-frontend-v1

v2 is a complete rewrite of v1 with improved design output quality, but its behavior may be unstable. For real production projects, I recommend validating the workflow with v1 first before committing to v2.

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Verifying taste-skill Is Working Correctly

After installing and linking, use this verification test in Claude Code:

Read the taste-skill SKILL.md file and explain what it does in one sentence.

If the output contains "anti-slop" or "design taste", the installation worked. If it says it cannot find the file, the symlink was not created properly — go back to Fix 1 and verify the path.

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Additional Context: Why This Problem Exists

This path mismatch is not unique to taste-skill. The broader skills ecosystem at github.com/vercel-labs/skills (used by multiple AI agent frameworks) has documented this issue in their GitHub issues page. The core problem:

• The npx skills CLI is framework-agnostic — it installs to a shared location `~/.agents/skills/`
• But each AI agent (Claude Code, Codex, etc.) maintains its own isolated skills directory
• This design allows skills to work across multiple agents, but requires explicit linking for each one

This is why npx skills list -g shows skills installed globally, but Claude Code cannot find them without the symlink.

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FAQ

Q: ln -s reports "File exists" — what do I do?

The symlink already exists. Remove it first, then recreate:

rm ~/.claude/skills/taste-skill
ln -s ~/.agents/skills/taste-skill ~/.claude/skills/taste-skill

Q: SessionStart hook not working?

Check if ~/.claude/settings.json has valid JSON syntax. You can also run the command directly to verify:

bash -c 'for dir in ~/.agents/skills/*/; do [ -d "$dir" ] && ln -sf "$dir" ~/.claude/skills/ 2>/dev/null; done'

If this runs without errors, the hook should work on next Claude Code restart.

Q: How to fully uninstall taste-skill?

# Remove symlink
rm ~/.claude/skills/taste-skill

# Remove source files
rm -rf ~/.agents/skills/taste-skill

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Summary

taste-skill is a tool that upgrades the quality of AI-generated interfaces by replacing generic boilerplate with premium layout, typography, motion, and spacing. But installing it in Claude Code has a path mismatch trap: npx defaults to ~/.agents/skills/ while Claude Code exclusively reads from ~/.claude/skills/. Solutions: manual symlink (temporary workaround) or SessionStart hook (permanent fix).

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📌 This article was AI-assisted generated and human-reviewed | TechPassive — An AI-driven content testing site focused on real tool reviews