The pro reference for working with Claude across every surface — skills, MCP servers, plugins, slash commands, hooks, the API, and the 4.x model family. Built for engineers who ship.
A portable, model-agnostic capability bundle. Three pieces, one folder.
YAML frontmatter says when the skill loads. Markdown body says what to do. That's the whole interface — no SDK, no compile step, no runtime.
Scripts, templates, schemas, reference docs — anything Claude reads or executes while the skill is active. Loaded lazily.
Only the description is always loaded. Body + bundled files pulled only when the skill triggers.
Same folder works in Claude Code, API, claude.ai, and desktop.
allowed-tools caps what a skill can do. Safer by default.
Skills stack. One prompt can light up many at once.
A short tour from the official Anthropic catalog and the community.
Skills work in Claude Code (CLI + IDE), the Claude API, claude.ai, and the desktop apps.
Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/ (user) or .claude/skills/ (project). Restart the session — Claude auto-discovers it.
# user-wide
git clone https://github.com/anthropics/skills ~/.claude/skills-src
cp -r ~/.claude/skills-src/document-skills/pdf ~/.claude/skills/
Full Claude Code instructions →
Use the code_execution tool plus the Skills container. Upload skill folders to the Files API and reference them in your request.
# Anthropic SDK client.beta.messages.create( model="claude-opus-4-7", betas=["skills-2025-10-02"], container={"skills": ["pdf", "xlsx"]}, ... )Full API instructions →
Settings → Capabilities → Skills. Toggle the official Anthropic skills (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint) or upload a custom one as a folder.
Walkthrough with screenshots →Some skills ship as part of a Claude Code plugin or MCP server (e.g., Figma, Playwright). Install via the plugin marketplace or claude plugin install.