Claude Code Subagents Don't Load Skills in Multi-Agent Systems

Multi-Agent Skills Loading Issue in Claude Code

A developer building a multi-agent system in Claude Code v2.1.91 has identified a critical limitation: subagents cannot access skills defined in the .claude/skills/ directory, while the main session loads skills perfectly with trigger keywords, full skill content in context, and quality gates followed.

Problem Details

When spawning a subagent via the Agent tool using subagent_type, the agent has zero access to skills. The developer tested six approaches:

• skills: in agent frontmatter - documented as "full skill content is injected at startup" but has no effect
• Skill in tools: list - not recognized, Skill tool is not available to subagents
• --agent myagent CLI flag - same result, skills not loaded
• Agent Teams (TeamCreate) - same result
• Loading skill natively in parent session, then spawning agent - agent doesn't inherit parent context
• Even native Claude skills (frontend-design, claude-api) are not available to subagents

Configuration Example

The agent file structure:

---
name: Sales
description: "Sales agent"
model: opus
skills:
- outreach
- validator
tools:
- Bash
- Read
- Write
- WebSearch
---

Skills exist at .claude/skills/outreach/SKILL.md with proper frontmatter and work perfectly in the main session.

Impact

This limitation makes the multi-agent architecture "useless for anything requiring domain knowledge" according to the developer. Agents produce significantly worse output because they can only Read the skill files (which loads them as chat content, not system instructions). The quality difference between main session (skills loaded natively) and subagent (skills read as markdown) is described as "massive."

The developer is running Claude Code 2.1.91 on macOS and is asking whether anyone has successfully used skills: in custom agent frontmatter, or if this is a known limitation, bug, or configuration error.