Custom Skill Development Overview

Custom Skills let you encapsulate team-specific workflows, tool integrations, and best practices into reusable capability modules.

When to Create a Custom Skill

Consider creating a custom Skill for:

• Repetitive workflows — Fixed processes you describe every time (e.g., code review checklist)
• Internal tooling — Calling company-internal APIs, databases, or services
• Domain-specific knowledge — Team coding standards, architecture conventions
• Document templates — Standardized PRDs, design docs, report formats
• Multi-step operations — Composite actions requiring a specific sequence

How Skills Work

User types "/my-skill"
    ↓
Claude Code looks up SKILL.md
    ↓
Loads Frontmatter (name, description, triggers)
    ↓
Loads Prompt (domain knowledge + workflow)
    ↓
Loads Resources (reference docs, templates)
    ↓
Claude runs in Skill mode

Steps to Create a Skill

1. Scope it — Define what the Skill does and doesn't do
2. Design triggers — Choose natural keywords with low false-positive rates
3. Write the prompt — Describe the workflow and domain knowledge
4. Prepare resources — Add reference docs and templates
5. Test and validate — Ensure accurate triggering and expected output
6. Iterate — Refine based on usage feedback

Skill Locations

Location	Scope	Best For
Project .claude/skills/	Current project	Project-specific workflows
User ~/.claude/skills/	All projects	General-purpose tool Skills

Next Steps

• Skill Anatomy — Understand SKILL.md composition
• Frontmatter Config — Learn metadata configuration
• Prompt Design — Write effective Skill prompts