Hey, thanks for the report. This is an interesting case. When you use --user-data-dir, Cursor creates a fully isolated config, and it looks like that also affects how it finds global skills.
A couple of quick questions to clarify:
If you start Cursor normally without a custom data dir, do the global skills from ~/.cursor/skills show up and work there?
Have you tried copying the skills into the custom directory, like ~/Applications/Cursor/Personal/config/skills/? Or creating a symlink from there to ~/.cursor/skills?
In theory, global skills should be available regardless of the data dir since it’s a user-level setting, but the current behavior probably isolates everything, including skills discovery. There are similar reports about symlinks in skills, and the team is aware of this area in general.
Let me know your answers. It’ll help us figure out if this is expected behavior or a bug in the discovery logic.
@lonny your case with --user-data-dir is actually a bug. When you use a custom launcher, Cursor isolates the whole config and can’t find the global skills. Sadly, there’s no workaround yet. Copying into config/skills doesn’t work, like you already confirmed.
The team is aware of the overall skills discovery issue.
@Akshay090 vercel skills creates a symlink by default, and Cursor doesn’t follow symlinks during skills discovery. This is a known bug.
A working workaround is to recreate the skills WITHOUT a symlink (do a direct copy), then check in Cursor Settings > Rules. The skills should show up without a restart.
I installed the skill using npx skills add, which created it as a symbolic link under ~/.cursor/skills, but the Cursor IDE doesn’t seem to recognize it.
Claude Code detects it without any problems, though.