The correct directory for custom skills in OpenClaude is ~/.claude/skills/, not ~/.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md directly at the top level.

Your analysis was almost right, but the key detail is: OpenClaude (being a fork of Claude Code) does scan ~/.claude/skills/ — you just need the right structure.

✅ Working structure:

~/.claude/skills/
└── my-custom-skill/ ← folder named after your skill
 └── SKILL.md ← required file

Your SKILL.md must have YAML frontmatter:

name: my-custom-skill
description: What this skill does and when to use it.

My Custom Skill

Instructions for Claude go here...

The name field becomes the /slash-command. The description is how Claude decides when to load it automatically.

Why ~/.claude/skills/*/SKILL.md didn't work for you:

You likely placed the SKILL.md directly inside ~/.claude/skills/ with no subfolder, e.g. ~/.claude/skills/SKILL.md. Each skill needs its own named subdirectory.

Skill discovery precedence in OpenClaude (highest → lowest):

1. <workspace>/skills/ — project-local
2. <workspace>/.agents/skills/
3. ~/.agents/skills/ — global personal
4. ~/.claude/skills/ ← your custom skills go here
5. Bundled skills (caveman, frontend-design, etc.)

To verify it's loading, restart OpenClaude after creating the directory, then type / — your skill name should appear in the list.

Bonus — project-local skills (no global install needed):

your-project/
└── .claude/
 └── skills/
 └── my-skill/
 └── SKILL.md

This loads only when you're working in that project directory.

Hope that unblocks you! 🎉

Hello!

The * was reflecting the skill name itself but unfortunately for my case I was still unable to launch my custom skills on Global level, haven't tried out yet the project level skills. :)

Will continue trying to create them.

Thank you for the current response although I can't still mark it as Answered yet.

Hi, @mehisn

I was having the same issue, but I realized I should use the .openclaude/skills folder instead of the .claude/skills folder.

Try searching for .openclaude and opening it; the skills folder probably won’t be there, so create it and place the folder containing the information and the SKILL.md file inside it.

~/.openclaude/skills/
└── my-custom-skill/ ← folder named after your skill
└── SKILL.md ← required file
🫡