What Are Claude Skills? How to Install and Use Them in Claude Code

If you use Claude for the same kind of task again and again, you've probably noticed you keep pasting the same instructions: your style rules, your checklist, the script you always run at the end. A Claude skill is how you stop doing that.

A skill is a folder with a file called SKILL.md inside it. The file tells Claude what the skill is for and how to do the task. The folder can also hold reference files, examples and scripts. Once it's installed, Claude can load it whenever a request matches, so your process comes along without you repeating it.

I package my own video styles this way, so this is the practical version: what's in a skill, where it goes, and how to check it's working.

What's inside a skill

The only required file is SKILL.md. It starts with a short header (called front matter) and then plain Markdown instructions:

---
name: brand-voice
description: Rewrite copy in our brand voice. Use when the user asks to
  edit, rewrite or check website or social copy.
---

When rewriting copy:
1. Keep sentences short. One idea per sentence.
2. No exclamation marks, no buzzwords like "supercharge".
3. Read the result out loud and cut anything that sounds like an ad.

Two fields matter most:

• name is what the skill is called. In Claude Code it also becomes the slash command, so this one runs with /brand-voice. If you leave it out, the folder name is used.
• description tells Claude when to use the skill. This is the most important line in the whole file. Claude reads every installed skill's description at the start of a session and loads the full skill only when your request matches it.

Next to SKILL.md you can add anything the task needs: a style guide, example files, or scripts Claude can run. A video skill, for example, might include reference frames and a render script.

Where to install skills in Claude Code

Claude Code looks for skills in a few places:

~ means your home folder. On a Mac that's /Users/yourname, on Windows C:\Users\yourname. If the .claude folder doesn't exist yet, create it.

So to install a skill you downloaded as rays.zip, you'd unzip it so the file ends up at ~/.claude/skills/rays/SKILL.md. That's it. Some skills also need a one-time setup step, like installing their script dependencies, and a good skill tells you that in its instructions.

If two skills have the same name, a personal skill wins over a project one. Give your skills specific names to avoid surprises.

How to use a skill

There are two ways:

1. Let Claude pick it. Just ask for the task in normal words. If it matches the skill's description, Claude loads the skill and follows it.
2. Call it directly. Type a slash and the skill name at the start of your message, like /brand-voice followed by what you want. Anything you type after the name is passed to the skill.

How to check a skill is installed

• In Claude Code, run /skills to see the list of skills it found.
• If yours is missing, check the path. The most common mistake is one folder too many, like ~/.claude/skills/rays/rays/SKILL.md after unzipping.
• Make sure SKILL.md starts with the --- header on the very first line.
• Edits to an existing skill are picked up live. If you created the whole skills folder while Claude Code was already running, reload skills or restart the session.

Skills in Claude Code vs claude.ai

Skills also work in the Claude apps, but you upload them there as a ZIP instead of placing a folder. The uploaded version accepts fewer header fields than Claude Code does, and some Claude Code features (like running commands to inject live context) don't work in chat. If a skill is built around scripts that run on your computer, it's meant for Claude Code.

When a skill is worth making

Make one when you notice you're giving Claude the same instructions for the third time. Good candidates:

• A writing style or tone you always want
• A checklist you run before publishing or deploying
• A creative style you want to repeat exactly, like a video look
• A workflow with scripts, where Claude needs to run the same commands each time

If you want to write your own, the next step is the SKILL.md itself: how to create a Claude skill walks through one from scratch.