With Skills, you are able to teach Claude specific workflows, tools, and processes. By creating a skill, you're giving Claude a playbook it can reference whenever you need a particular type of help—whether that's generating reports in your company's format, cleaning and using data the way you normally do, or pulling and analyzing CRM data your way.
There are two paths for creating skills. You can create skills by writing the files yourself for full control over structure and implementation. See How to create custom skills and Skills authoring best practices for that approach.
This guide focuses on the other path: creating skills through conversation with Claude. You describe your process naturally, and Claude handles the formatting and structure. This approach makes Skills accessible to anyone, regardless of technical background.
New to skills? See What are Skills and Skills user guide to get started learning about Skills.
Creating a skill through conversation
Creating a skill with Claude means having a conversation where you explain your approach and share any materials you want included. Claude translates this into a properly formatted skill that can work in future chats.
1. Start a conversation
Open a new chat and say something like "I want to create a skill for quarterly business reviews" or "I need a skill that knows how to analyze customer feedback."
If you have materials that show your approach—templates you use, examples of work you're proud of, brand guidelines you follow, data files you reference—upload them. You can also mention any connected tools Claude should use. If you are unsure of what else to include, ask Claude for guidance.
2. Answer Claude's questions
Claude will ask about your process. Provide enough detail that someone capable but unfamiliar could follow your approach.
You'll get questions about concrete usage ("Can you give examples of when you'd use this skill?") or about your process ("What makes output good for this type of work?").
3. Claude builds the Skill
In Claude's thinking, you will see it read a skill-creator skill to follow best practices in creating a properly structured skill. Claude will create a SKILL.md file (the instruction file every skill needs), organize any materials you've provided, and generate code for operations you've described that need to happen consistently. Claude then packages everything into a skill file.
4. Activate and test the skill
Save the the skill file that Claude creates. In Settings > Capabilities > Skills, you can view your library of skills and turn them on or off as needed.
Try using your skill by describing a task the skill should address. See if Claude recognizes the situation (you'll see "Using [skill name]" in Claude's thinking) and whether it produces the expected outcome. If something's off, ask Claude to update the skill with your desired changes. Repeat this process until your skill works effectively.
Skills you can build
You can build skills for a range of tasks. Skills can capture how your organization works, enable specialized expertise you don't personally have, or work together to handle complex workflows.
CRM automation skill: creates contacts, updates opportunities, maintains data standards to eliminate repetitive entry
Legal contract review skill: evaluates agreements against standard terms, identifies risky clauses, suggests protective language
Sprint planning skill: calculates team velocity, estimates work accounting for patterns, allocates capacity, generates planning docs
SEO content skill: analyzes opportunities, structures for search intent, optimizes while maintaining brand voice
Music composition skill: creates original tracks with realistic instruments, applies genre conventions, exports for production
Report automation skill: gathers monthly data, applies calculations, generates visualizations, formats in template, distributes to stakeholders
Skill reviewer skill: evaluates another skill's effectiveness, suggests improvements to instructions, identifies missing edge cases, recommends structure changes
What you can include within a skill
Skills bundle three types of content together—instructions, reference materials, and scripts. Knowing these components helps you articulate what you need when creating a skill with Claude.
Instructions — Every skill needs a SKILL.md file that explains your process. When asking Claude to create a skill, describe your process for Claude to structure it into proper instructions. At the top of your SKILL.md file, will be the skill's name and what it does. Claude scans this information first to decide whether or not to load and use the full skill during your conversations. Below that are clear instructions on how to do the task.
Reference materials and assets — Sometimes instructions alone aren't enough and Claude needs actual files to reference or use in the output. To include these, upload any relevant files or information when creating your Skill. Claude determines whether to embed guidance in the SKILL.md instructions or bundle it as a reference file.
Brand assets: font files, logos, color palettes, design templates
Reference documents: policy guides, workflow procedures, database schemas
Templates: spreadsheet with formulas, presentation layouts, document styles
Data files: CSV lookup tables, JSON configurations, pricing databases
Media files: audio samples, images, video clips
Scripts — These are executable code files that Claude can run to handle complex operations more reliably than instructions alone. You don't need to write these yourself. When you describe tasks that need scripts, Claude recognizes them and creates the code automatically. Examples include:
Data work for tasks like cleaning data, running calculations, and creating charts or dashboards
Document work to handle file processing tasks like batch editing and applying formatting
Integrations to connect your skill to other tools you use, such fetching data from external sources
Media processing to transform images, edit videos, and generate audio