Bug: Plugin fails to load - 'Path escapes plugin directory: ./'

[syxc]

Bug Report: Plugin fails to load with "Path escapes plugin directory: ./"

Summary

Plugin fails to load after installation with error:

Plugin visual-explainer has an invalid manifest file
Validation errors: skills: Invalid input

Root Cause

The plugin.json contains "skills": ["./"] which is rejected by the path safety validation.

Environment

• Claude Code: latest (as of 2026-05-16)
• Plugin: visual-explainer v0.7.1
• OS: macOS

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install plugin from marketplace
2. Error appears on session start

Fix

Change .claude-plugin/plugin.json line 10 from:

"skills": ["./"]

to:

"skills": "./commands/"

Note: The skills field should be a string (not array) pointing to a directory with trailing slash, following the same pattern as superpowers plugin.

Reference

Similar working config from superpowers v5.1.0:

"skills": "./skills/"

[marcuslannister]

Confirming this reproduces on v0.7.1 with the same error.

One nuance on the proposed fix: pointing skills at ./commands/ would silence the manifest validation error, but it wouldn't actually register the plugin's skill, because commands/ holds slash commands — SKILL.md lives at the plugin root.

In practice the commands still load fine even with the broken skills entry (Claude Code skips the invalid skill path but keeps loading the rest of the plugin). What's lost is the auto-trigger metadata from SKILL.md.

For a fix that both clears the error and registers the skill, the layout would need to match the superpowers pattern the OP referenced — e.g. move SKILL.md into skills/visual-explainer/SKILL.md and set:

"skills": "./skills/"

Happy to send a PR if that direction sounds right.