“Girls only like guys with great skills”
— Napoleon Dynamite

What skills are

Skills — teaching the AI your way

A skill is a markdown file that teaches Claude a specific workflow. Drop one in and Claude gains a new capability instantly.

What's a markdown file? It's just a plain text file (like a .txt) with a .md extension. You can write one in any text editor — no special software needed. It uses simple formatting like # headings and - bullet points. If you can write a to-do list, you can write a markdown file.

Two types of skill

Global

~/.claude/skills/

Skills that follow you across every project. Think of them as your personal toolkit — conventions, style guides, and workflows you always want available.

Available in every Claude Code session
Ideal for personal conventions and defaults
Not committed to any repo

Project

[project]/.claude/skills/

Skills that live inside a specific repo. The whole team shares them — they encode project-specific knowledge like your deploy pipeline, test strategy, or database migration steps.

Committed to version control with the project
Shared by the entire team automatically
Scoped to one codebase's conventions

The mental model: global skills are tools you bring to every job site — your favourite hammer, your go-to measuring tape. Project skills are the site-specific blueprints that tell you where the walls go.

What a skill actually looks like

.claude/skills/testing.md

---

name: Unit testing with Vitest

description: How to write and run tests for this project

---

# Testing conventions

- Every new function gets a co-located `.test.ts` file

- Use `describe` / `it` blocks, not flat `test()` calls

- Mock external services with `vi.mock()`

- Run the full suite: `pnpm test`

# Before committing

1. Run `pnpm test` and confirm zero failures

2. Check coverage is above 80%

3. Add snapshot tests for any new UI components

The catalogue

These are ready-made skills you can add to your project. Each one comes with a terminal command you can copy and paste — it creates the skill file in the right folder automatically. Once it's there, Claude picks it up next time you start a session. No configuration, no setup menus.

Document & output

globalTechnical writerProduces clean markdown docs, READMEs, and changelogs in your preferred style

globalBlog post drafterTurns bullet-point outlines into long-form blog posts with SEO headings

projectAPI doc generatorReads route handlers and outputs OpenAPI-flavoured markdown

projectChangelog builderGenerates changelogs from commit history following keep-a-changelog format

Design & frontend

globalTailwind component builderBuilds accessible, responsive components using your Tailwind config

projectDesign-system enforcerValidates that new UI matches your token palette, spacing scale, and type ramp

SEO & marketing

globalMeta-tag optimizerGenerates title, description, and OG tags following latest best practices

globalSchema markup writerAdds JSON-LD structured data for articles, products, FAQs, and more

Database & code

projectMigration authorWrites reversible SQL migrations following your naming and style conventions

globalType-safe query builderGenerates Drizzle / Prisma queries with full TypeScript types

Project-specific

projectDeploy checklistRuns your pre-deploy checks: tests, lint, build, env validation

projectPR reviewerReviews pull requests against your team's code-quality rubric

projectIncident responderReads error logs, identifies root cause, and drafts a fix PR

Where to find community skills

Anthropic official

github.com/anthropics/claude-skills

First-party skills maintained by the Claude team. Highest trust level.

officialverified

SkillsMP

skillsmp.com

Community marketplace with ratings, reviews, and one-click install.

marketplacerated

VoltAgent

voltagent.dev/skills

Open-source agent framework with a growing skills registry.

open-sourceframework

agentskill.sh

Curated directory of production-tested skills with usage stats.

curatedstats

Cursor marketplace

cursor.com/marketplace

Skills packaged as Cursor extensions for drag-and-drop setup.

editorextensions

Your own toolkit repo

github.com/you/claude-skills

Fork a starter template and build a private collection your team shares.

privateteam

How to vet a community skill

Read the entire file

Skills are short markdown — there is no excuse not to read every line before installing.

Check for shell commands

Search for backtick-wrapped commands. Make sure none are destructive (rm -rf, DROP TABLE, etc.).

Look for exfiltration patterns

Watch for instructions that ask Claude to send data to external URLs or unknown APIs.

Test in a sandbox first

Run the skill in an isolated project or branch before using it on production code.

Pin to a commit hash

If you install from a git repo, pin to a specific commit so upstream changes don't surprise you.

Security warning

A skill is a prompt — and prompts can instruct Claude to run shell commands, read files, or call APIs. Never install a skill you haven't read. Treat unknown skills with the same caution you would treat an unknown npm package.

How skills compound

week 1

Day one

You install one testing skill. Claude writes tests the way you like them.

month 1

After first project

You have five skills — testing, docs, deploy, lint, and PR review. Each session starts smarter.

month 6

Six months in

Your skills library is a living knowledge base. New team members onboard in minutes, not days.

the rule

The rule

Every hour you spend writing a skill saves ten hours across its lifetime. The ROI only grows.