Claude Code Skill Precedence

While preparing for the Claude Certified Architect - Foundation (CCAF) exam, I came across an interesting detail about how Claude Code handles conflicts when multiple skills have the same name.

It turns out there’s a very specific priority order (or precedence) that determines which skill gets activated. This is especially important if you’re like me and have a collection of personal skills that might clash with project-specific ones in a repository you’ve just cloned.

Here is the Anatomy of Skill Precedence in Claude Code, from highest to lowest priority:

• Enterprise: These are managed settings deployed organization-wide. They always win, which makes sense for enforcing mandatory standards and compliance across a company.
• Personal: These live in your home directory (~/.claude/skills). They follow you across all your projects and override any project-specific skills with the same name.
• Project: These are the .claude/skills directory inside a specific repository. They are shared with anyone who clones the repo, but they’ll be ignored if you have a personal skill that conflicts.
• Plugins: These are installed plugins, which have the lowest priority.

I found this particularly useful to know because I often create my own versions of common skills. Knowing that my Personal skills take precedence over Project ones means I can maintain my own preferred workflows without having to modify every repository I work in.

That’s it, folks! I hope this helps you manage your agent skills more effectively.