Teach Claude a Skill — Done Your Way, Every Time

Last lesson you handed Claude a briefing — the standing note about your project. But there's a particular kind of job that note doesn't cover: the one you keep walking Claude through the same way, every single time. "Format it like this. No, put that part there. Number the steps." You get the result you want — and then next week you're typing nearly the same coaching all over again. There's a way to do that explaining just once.

What a skill actually is

A skill is your way of doing a particular job, written down once and handed to Claude — so it does that job your way from then on, without the re-coaching.

Think of training a sharp new assistant. The first time they take on a recurring task, you walk them through your method: the order you do it in, the bit people always get wrong, what "done right" actually looks like. They jot it on a card. After that, you stop re-explaining — you just say "do the thing," and it comes back the way you'd have done it yourself. A skill is that card.

That's the part worth slowing down on, because it's easy to mistake a skill for a simple shortcut. It isn't really about speed. It's about competence — your standard for how a job should be done, captured so it happens that way reliably. The cook doesn't just plate faster; they plate it right.

And that's the clean line between a skill and last lesson's CLAUDE.md: the briefing note is always-on background about your whole project; a skill is a method for one particular job, pulled out when that job comes up.

Two ways to get one

From here the path forks. You can build your own skill — teach Claude a method that's yours — or you can borrow a ready-made one that somebody else already built and shared. We'll start with building your own, because once you've felt how that works, borrowing makes instant sense — and borrowing comes with one rule you'll want to hear clearly.

Build your own: talk it through first

When is it worth making a skill? The signal is that small flicker of I'm explaining this again. A few honest examples, none of them coding: the way you like your meeting notes tidied up. A weekly summary written in your voice. The exact format you use to add a new recipe to your site. Any job you keep doing the same way, where you wish Claude simply knew the way.

Here's the move that makes all the difference — and it's the same instinct as last lesson. Don't open with "build me a skill to add recipes." That asks Claude to guess your method. Instead, talk through the problem first. Tell Claude what you're trying to pin down, walk it through your steps, and let it ask questions and poke at the parts you left vague. Then, once the method is clear between the two of you, say: "now turn that into a reusable skill." Problem first, skill second.

There's even a purpose-built helper for this: an official skill from the makers of Claude Code whose whole job is making skills well. It interviews you for what's needed, drafts the skill, and can test and sharpen it afterward. It's called skill-creator, and if you want the best result, it's the way to go. (Adding it takes about two minutes — there's a short bonus at the very end of this lesson if you'd like to.)

As for what a skill is under the hood — keep it light. It's just a small folder with a plain-text instructions file inside, plus a short description that tells Claude when to reach for it. That description is the part that matters: the clearer it is about when this skill applies, the more reliably Claude knows to use it. That's as deep as you need to go today. (Curious to go further than today? The official skills documentation at code.claude.com/docs/en/skills lays out the full details — entirely optional, just there if you want it.)

Where a project skill lives

Once it's made, your skill has to live somewhere — and that choice decides where it works. The usual home is the project itself.

A project skill sits inside the project, tucked into that .claude folder we first spotted a few lessons back. It travels with the project: share the project and the skill goes along, and it can lean on everything that project knows about itself. An "add a recipe" skill belongs here — it only really makes sense for the Recipe Box.

Where a personal skill lives — your home folder

The other home is your personal Claude folder, and a skill kept there works in every project you open, not just one. That's the right spot for something general — like "summarize my notes the way I like" — that you'd want on hand no matter what you're working on.

So where is that folder? It sits in your home folder — the personal space your computer sets aside for your user account, where your own files already live. Every computer has one; it just goes by a different address depending on the system:

• Mac: /Users/your-name
• Windows: C:\Users\your-name
• Linux: /home/your-name

Inside that home folder is the very same .claude cupboard from before, and your personal skills sit on its skills shelf:

You won't have to dig this folder out by hand — when you make a personal skill, Claude already knows to put it there. The thing to hold onto is the idea: a project skill rides along with one project, while a personal skill lives with you and turns up everywhere.

A good rule of thumb: don't reach for "everywhere" by default. If a skill truly belongs to one project, keep it there — the project skill is usually the stronger choice, because it travels with the work and understands its surroundings.

Borrowing a ready-made skill — and the one rule

You don't have to build everything yourself. Plenty of skills already exist, made by other people and shared for anyone to install — including that skill-creator helper we just mentioned. Picking up a good one someone else built is a perfectly smart move. (These ready-made skills arrive bundled as plugins, which we'll properly unpack a few lessons from now — for today, just know they're installable.)

But here's the rule, and it's the same street-smarts you'd use anywhere else: a skill is software, and software you install can do real things on your computer. A skill can run actual commands. A careless one — or a sneaky one — could mess with your files, or quietly send your information somewhere it shouldn't go. So treat it exactly like installing any app: only take skills from sources you genuinely trust, and if someone hands you one, have a quick look at what's inside before you switch it on, rather than running a stranger's instructions blind.

This isn't a reason to be scared off — ready-made skills are genuinely useful. It's just the seatbelt: trusted sources, a quick look first, then enjoy the ride.

So that's a skill: your way of doing a job, taught once and reused — built by you, or borrowed with a careful eye. You've now given Claude both halves of "how I work" — the standing brief, and your methods for specific jobs. Which raises a different question: not how a job gets done, but who does it. When a task grows big enough to deserve its own focused helper, Claude can spin one up — and that's exactly where we head next.

Bonus — Get the skill-creator skill

Fully optional, and a nice first taste of installing something into Claude Code. The skill-creator is the official helper for building skills well — it interviews you, drafts the skill, and can test and improve it. Adding it is all clicks, no typing.

1

Open the plugin directory

Click the + button beside the prompt box, choose Plugins, then Add plugin.

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2

Find Skill creator under Anthropic

A Directory window opens. With Plugins selected down the left side, stay on the Anthropic tab along the top and look for the Skill creator card — "Create new skills, improve existing skills, and measure skill performance."

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3

Add it

Click Skill creator to open it, then add it (the + on its card). That's the install done.

4

Use it

Now just type /skill-creator, or say "help me build a skill using skill-creator," and let it guide you. (If it doesn't show up right away, restart Claude Code once.)

What you just did has a name: you installed a plugin. That's the delivery box ready-made skills come in — and we give plugins a lesson all their own later on. For now, you've got the best skill-building helper there is. Go make something.