Skills: teach Claude your process once
A skill is a folder of instructions that Claude opens on its own when it needs it. Here is how it works and how to write your own.
Some things you do with Claude the same way every time: lecture notes, proofreading, a report format. Instead of explaining the process every time, you write it down once in a skill.
How it works
A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file. It starts with a name and a short description. At the start of a chat, Claude only sees these descriptions. When your request matches one of them, it opens the full skill and follows it.
That is why you can have dozens of skills without overloading Claude.
What SKILL.md looks like
---
name: lecture-notes
description: Turns a lecture transcript or slides into clear
study notes. Use when the user pastes a transcript, slides
or notes from a lecture.
---
# Lecture notes
1. Start with a three-sentence summary.
2. List the key terms with a short definition.
3. ...The name may only contain lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. Below the header is plain markdown with the steps.
The description matters most
Claude uses the description to decide whether to use the skill. Say what the skill does and when to use it. If the description is vague, Claude will not notice the skill.
Helps with school.
Turns a lecture transcript into study notes. Use when the user pastes a transcript or slides.
Where skills work
- Claude.ai: upload the skill as a ZIP in settings, under Skills.
- Claude Code: put the skill folder in
~/.claude/skills/or in.claude/skills/inside a project.
Don’t want to start from scratch? The Skills section has ready-made ones to download.