claude-api — API Development Assistant

• Trigger: /claude-api or code importing anthropic/@anthropic-ai/sdk
• Best for: Building apps with Claude API, debugging API calls, optimizing prompt caching
• Not for: Other LLM providers (OpenAI etc.), general API development

Overview

claude-api helps you build, debug, and optimize applications using the Claude API / Anthropic SDK. It excels at Prompt Caching, model version migration, and tool use optimization.

Trigger Conditions

claude-api auto-triggers when:

• Code imports anthropic or @anthropic-ai/sdk
• You mention Claude API, Anthropic SDK
• You add/modify Claude features (caching, thinking, tool use)
• You ask about prompt caching

Skipped when:

• Importing openai or other providers
• General HTTP API development

Examples

Example 1: Add Prompt Caching

/claude-api Help me add prompt caching to this chat app to reduce token costs

Claude analyzes the code and suggests:

• What to cache (system prompts, tool definitions)
• How to use cache_control markers
• How to verify cache hit rate

Example 2: Model Version Migration

/claude-api Migrate this project from Claude 4.5 to 4.7, check for breaking changes

Example 3: Tool Use Optimization

/claude-api My tool use response times are too slow — help me optimize

Example 4: Error Handling

/claude-api Improve the API call error handling and retry logic

Example 5: Streaming

/claude-api Add streaming responses to this chat application

Common Optimizations

Optimization	Effect
Prompt Caching	90%+ reduction in duplicate token costs
Thinking Budget	Control reasoning depth and cost
Token Limits	Prevent context window overflow
Batch Processing	Reduce API call count

Notes

• Prompt Caching has a minimum cacheable length (typically >1024 tokens)
• Caching is based on exact string matching — even one character difference causes a miss
• Model migration: watch for behavioral differences, not just API differences
• Always implement exponential backoff for production error handling

Related Skills

• write-a-skill — Encapsulate common API patterns as a Skill
• diagnose — Troubleshoot API call issues