Scope and Precedence: Where Skills Live
Four Places a Skill Can Live
Where you store a skill determines who can use it. There are four scopes, and when skills share the same name across levels, a clear precedence order decides which one wins. Getting this right is what lets organizations enforce standards while individuals still customize.
| Scope | Path | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise (managed) | managed settings directory | All users in your organization |
| Personal | ~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md | All your projects |
| Project | .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md | This project only (commit to git) |
| Plugin | <plugin>/skills/<name>/SKILL.md | Where the plugin is enabled |
Four scopes from broadest (enterprise) to most contained (plugin). Personal follows you; project travels with the repo.
The Precedence Ladder
When two skills share a name, the higher-priority scope wins: Enterprise overrides Personal, and Personal overrides Project. Plugin skills use a plugin-name:skill-name namespace, so they can't conflict with the other levels at all.
Precedence: Enterprise > Personal > Project. Plugin skills are namespaced (plugin:skill), so they never collide.
Skill beats command on a name clash
Custom commands are now skills, so if you still have a .claude/commands/ file and a skill share the same name, the SKILL takes precedence. To avoid confusion altogether, give skills distinct, descriptive names like frontend-review rather than just review.
Personal vs Project: The Everyday Choice
Most of the time you're choosing between personal and project scope. Personal skills (~/.claude/skills) follow YOU across every project — your commit style, your documentation format. Project skills (.claude/skills, committed to git) travel with the REPO, so anyone who clones it gets them automatically — ideal for team standards and codebase-specific workflows.
| Personal | Project | |
|---|---|---|
| Path | ~/.claude/skills/ | .claude/skills/ (in the repo) |
| Available in | All your projects | This project only |
| Shared with team | No | Yes — via git |
| Best for | Your personal workflow | Team standards, codebase-specific skills |
Personal = yours everywhere; Project = the team's, shipped with the repo.
Discovery Niceties
Claude Code is generous about finding project skills. It loads .claude/skills/ from your starting directory and every parent up to the repo root — so launching Claude in a subdirectory still picks up root-level skills. In monorepos, it also discovers skills from nested .claude/skills/ directories on demand when you work with files in those packages.
- •Project skills load from .claude/skills/ in the current dir and all parents up to the repo root.
- •Monorepos: nested package-level .claude/skills/ are discovered on demand when you touch those files.
- •--add-dir is an exception: its .claude/skills/ IS loaded (unlike most config, which add-dir doesn't load).
- •Enterprise scope is the lever for mandatory, org-wide standards — it can't be overridden by personal or project skills.
Next
You know where skills live and which one wins. Next: how to actively SHARE skills — via git for your team, plugins for the community, and managed settings for the whole org.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Skills live in four scopes: Enterprise (managed), Personal (~/.claude/skills), Project (.claude/skills), and Plugin.
- ✓Precedence on a name conflict: Enterprise > Personal > Project; plugin skills are namespaced (plugin:skill) so they never collide.
- ✓A skill takes precedence over a same-named .claude/commands/ file; use distinct names (frontend-review, not review) to avoid clashes.
- ✓Personal skills follow you across all projects; project skills are committed to git and shared with anyone who clones the repo.
- ✓Choose project scope for team standards and codebase-specific skills; personal for your own cross-project workflow.
- ✓Discovery: project skills load from the current dir up to the repo root (and nested package dirs on demand); --add-dir's .claude/skills/ is loaded as an exception; enterprise enforces mandatory org-wide standards.
Check Your Understanding
Test what you learned in this lesson.
Q1.When two skills share the same name, which scope wins?
Q2.What's the difference between a personal and a project skill?
Q3.If a .claude/commands/ file and a skill share the same name, which is used?
Q4.How does Claude Code discover project skills relative to your working directory?
Practice This Lesson