Worktrees & Fresh Clones

spm materializes skills into gitignored project-local directories (.spm/claude/, .agents/skills/spm-managed-skills/). Git worktrees have their own working tree and don't share those untracked files — so, exactly like node_modules, each checkout needs its own spm install:

git worktree add ../feature -b feature
cd ../feature && spm install         # materialize this worktree's skills

Skipping this is the usual reason an agent doesn't see a declared skill in a new worktree or a fresh clone.

Check with spm status

spm status tells you at a glance what is materialized in the current checkout, and exits non-zero when anything is missing — so it works in scripts too:

spm status
# [claude]  0/1 installed  .../.spm/claude/plugin/skills
#   reviewer  MISSING
# error: some declared skills are not materialized in this checkout — run `spm install` here

For Claude, spm status also reports a stale marketplace pointer explicitly:

  ! .claude/settings.local.json marketplace points at /repo/.spm/claude, not this checkout (/repo-feature/.spm/claude)

Auto-install on checkout

To install automatically on every branch checkout and new worktree, add a post-checkout git hook (worktrees share the repo's .git/hooks):

# .git/hooks/post-checkout   — then: chmod +x .git/hooks/post-checkout
#!/bin/sh
# Re-materialize spm skills so Claude/Copilot always see the declared set.
[ -f ai.lock ] && command -v spm >/dev/null 2>&1 && spm install >/dev/null 2>&1
exit 0

Claude session gotcha

spm install writes the absolute path of the current checkout's .spm/claude/ into that checkout's .claude/settings.local.json. Since that file is gitignored, a new worktree either has no registration at all or — if it was copied over — one still pointing at the checkout it came from. Either way, run spm install inside the worktree and start (or /reload-plugins in) the Claude session from that same worktree; discovery is snapshotted at session start.