Most AI companies have incredibly fast shipping features, and Anthropic is no exception. It only makes sense though. Their flagship product is currently making headlines Claude Codeand aims to speed up software development. Claude Code’s creator shared that in many cases this feature does all the heavy lifting for writing the code itself. In fact, the company said that about 90% of Claude Code is written by Claude Code himself!
However, in the last few days, we have been working on Anthropic Code Review, Claude Marketplace, Connectors, Scheduled Tasks within Claude Cowork, Remote Control in Claude Code, etc. sent. So, amidst all this noise, it’s inevitable that a feature or two will be missing. One Claude feature that has completely changed the way I use Claude on a daily basis is Skills, and it’s a feature that most people sleep on.
What are Claude Skills?
Most rated Claude feature
Skills are essentially a set of instructions structured as portable files that teach Clo to perform certain tasks in a repetitive manner. This means that instead of explaining the same set of instructions every time, you can simply store them in a Skill and bring them up when you need them. The best thing about Skills in Claude is that you don’t need to explicitly tell him to cast a Skill you create (or come built-in) when you ask him to do a task. Instead, Claude automatically analyzes available Skills, finds one that fits the task, and loads it when needed.
Besides saving you the hassle of repeating the same set of instructions every time, Skills also help improve the consistency and quality of Claude’s output and prevent context window overload. There are two types of Skills of interest to the average user: Anthropic Skills and Special Skills. The first of these are the internal Skills created and maintained by Anthropic, which include creating complex HTML artifacts, creating documents for Excel and Word, creating high-quality MCP servers, and more. intended for special tasks such as Custom Skills, on the other hand, are skills you create yourself, tailored to your own workflow and tasks.
If Chloe has a task where you give the same instructions over and over again, that’s a sign that it’s a Skill. You can also use Notion, Figma, Asana, Atlassian, etc. You can download professionally built Skills from platforms like Anthropic explains that these Skills are optimized to work with the respective platforms’ MCP connectors. Given that Skills are folders managed by the SKILL.md Markdown file, creating and sharing them is as simple as navigating through the folder. Claude users are constantly uploading the Skills they create to their GitHub repositories, and you can simply download and upload them to your Claude account to start using them right away.
There is a Skill that helps you create skills
A bit ironic, isn’t it?
While I think it’s useful to use an Anthropic-created or community-created Skill, if you stop there, you’re leaving a lot on the table. The real power of the feature comes when you start building your own.
The best part (which makes me laugh a little too) is that one of Anthropic’s default Skills is a Skill that literally helps you create Skills. It’s called the Skill Builder, and it’s designed to help you create new Skills, modify existing ones, test them, and optimize their descriptions.
As mentioned above, Claude can automatically recognize that a Skill is appropriate for your task. So when I said, “Hey, I want to create a Lesson Plan Builder Skill,” Claude immediately brought up the Skill Builder on his own. He read the Skill papers and then asked me some target questions to narrow down the scope. For example, he asked me:
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In what format should the syllabus be submitted?
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What inputs should the skill handle?
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Should the research plan include resource proposals?
My answer to the first question was Interactive React Artifacts, so it even referenced one of Anthropic’s Competencies, frontend design, to check out best practices for React artifacts. He then looked at the existing Skill structure and began to draft it. The final Skill he created consisted of two files: a Skill.MD file containing the basic guidelines, and an artifact-guidelines.md file in the references folder containing specific best practices for creating React artifacts.
Claude also gave me three test cases that I could run to test the Skills. One example was: I have a chemistry final in 2 weeks and I can study for about 2 hours a day. I passed the class, but I’m confused by a few chapters – probably at an intermediate level.
When I tested the Skills, I realized that the Skills needed some updating. I wanted Claude to ask me clearly what I was going to try before creating anything. It used to create topics based on the topic name. After I told Claude what I wanted, he modified the instructions to use user-supplied themes as a foundation and build a table around it.
As someone who is a big proponent of using AI to improve learning, developing a solid business plan is something I address. With this Skill, I no longer have to explain my preferences, format, or learning style every time.
Here are some Skills I’ve been using since discovering this feature
The list can be continued
Most of the Skills I use are Custom skills I created specifically for my workflow. For example, I’ve been doing some tech content creation. Considering I’m relatively new to this, coming up with Reel ideas that will consistently resonate with my audience is a different challenge. So I created a Skill that acts as my personal content strategist. He knows my audience, what angles have worked well for me in the past, and he knows the style of videos I enjoy creating.
Given that I write about technology on a daily basis, I’ve also included instructions that I’d like to keep in mind for ease of production by flagging ideas that I can build on from articles I’ve already written. Generates 10 Reel ideas per day based on my instructions. Since you can also combine Skills with the Scheduled Task feature Inside CoworkI have set this task to run automatically every morning at 8am. Without this Skill, I would have to explain all this context every time I sit down for a content idea.
I have a number of other Skills that are more specific to my day-to-day workflow, but here are some of the other Skills that I use and don’t create:
These are just a few I’ve played with so far, but they give you a good idea of how flexible the feature really is.
The initial setup is totally worth it
Although the initial setup takes a few minutes and you may have to spend extra time upgrading the Skills you create, you’ll thank your former self every time Claude completes a task the way you want without needing the same instructions.
