If you’ve ever explained the same thing to an AI assistant three times (how you write a quote, the tone of your Instagram posts, the format of your monthly report), Claude skills are the fix. A skill is a set of instructions you write once. Claude keeps it on file and uses it whenever a task calls for it.
This guide explains what skills are, where they work, how to make one without any coding, and what they look like in a small business. Facts are from Anthropic’s own pages, checked on 17 October 2026.
What is a Claude skill?
In Anthropic’s words, skills are “folders that include instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude can load when needed.” In practice, a skill is a small folder with:
- A SKILL.md file: a name, a one-line description of when to use it, and the instructions themselves, written in plain English.
- Optional extras: a template, an example, a price list, or a small script for calculations.
Anthropic compares a skill to an onboarding guide you’d write for a new team member: it tells Claude how your business does a specific job.
How Claude uses a skill
Claude doesn’t read every skill all the time. At the start it sees only each skill’s name and description. When your request matches a description, say “write a quote for the Patel kitchen”, it opens the full instructions and any files it needs, and follows them. This is why you can install many skills without slowing anything down, and why the description matters so much: it’s what Claude matches your request against.
Skills vs projects, instructions and connectors
| What it is | When it’s used | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom instructions | General preferences (tone, language, your role) | Every conversation |
| Projects | A workspace with background files for one topic | Only inside that project |
| Connectors | Links to your tools: email, calendar, drive, CRM, payments | Whenever Claude needs data from those tools |
| Skills | A procedure for one job, with its templates | Only when the task matches, in any conversation |
Connectors and skills work together: the connector lets Claude read your bookings or sales, and the skill tells it what to do with them, such as your monthly review in your format.
Which plans include skills?
On Claude’s pricing page, skills are listed on every individual plan, including Free, Pro and Max, and they’re part of the Team plan. Anthropic’s help centre says to turn on Code execution and file creation in your settings first. On Team and Enterprise, an owner turns skills on for the organization and can share skills with the whole team.
Skills also work in Claude Code, the version of Claude that runs on your own computer. There, a skill you save becomes a command you can type, such as /weekly-review, and Claude can also use it on its own when a request matches.
One detail to know: a skill you add in the Claude app, in Claude Code and through Anthropic’s developer platform are kept separately, so if you use more than one, add the skill in each.
Anthropic’s ready-made skills
Claude comes with skills for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF. You don’t set them up: when you ask Claude for a spreadsheet, a document or a slide deck, it uses them to produce a real file you can download and edit.
How to create a skill (no coding)
The easiest way is to ask Claude. Anthropic built a skill-creator that asks you about the job, then writes the folder and the SKILL.md for you. A good request looks like this:
“Help me create a skill for writing quotes. We’re a flooring company. Every quote has the customer’s name and address, the rooms and square footage, the product, labour at our rates, a 10% contingency, our standard terms, and a sign-off from me.”
Then:
- Give it your real material: a quote you’re proud of, your price list, your terms.
- Test it with three or four real requests and look at what comes out.
- Tighten the description if Claude uses the skill when it shouldn’t, or misses it when it should.
- Keep one job per skill. A quote skill and a follow-up email skill work better than one skill that does both.
If you’d rather write it yourself, a skill is just a folder with a SKILL.md file inside, zipped and uploaded in Claude’s settings. Skills follow an open format published by Anthropic, the Agent Skills standard, which other AI tools have adopted too.
Eight examples for a small business
These are examples of what you could build, not Anthropic’s claims:
- Your brand voice. How you sound, words you use and avoid, three sample posts. Every email, caption and web text comes out in your voice.
- Quotes and estimates. Your pricing rules, standard terms and layout, producing a Word or PDF quote from a few lines of notes.
- The monthly review. How to read your bookings and sales exports and what to report: revenue, rebooking rate, quiet days, top services, and three things to do next month.
- Client follow-ups. Your approved wording after a first visit, a missed appointment or a complaint.
- Promotion planning. How you plan an offer: check quiet days, pick a service with good margins, draft the post, the email and the text message.
- Policies and handbooks. Turn rough notes into a cancellation policy, a safety procedure or a staff handbook page in your format.
- New-hire onboarding. A first-week plan for each role, built from your checklist.
- Review replies. How you answer five-star reviews and how you handle the difficult ones.
The pattern is the same each time: anything you do repeatedly, with a “right way” to do it, is a skill waiting to be written.
Keep skills safe
Anthropic’s advice is to treat a skill like software: only install skills you created yourself or got from a source you trust, and read every file in a skill from anyone else before you add it. Two more rules for a business:
- Never put passwords, API keys or client records in a skill file. Let connectors handle access to your tools.
- Still review the output. A skill makes Claude consistent; it doesn’t make it infallible.
Questions
Are Claude skills free? Skills are listed on Claude’s free plan as well as the paid plans. You’ll get more use out of them on a paid plan, which allows more usage and includes Claude Code.
What’s the difference between a skill and a prompt? A prompt is a one-off instruction in a single conversation. A skill is saved, and Claude uses it automatically whenever a task matches, so you don’t repeat yourself.
Do skills work in Claude Code? Yes. In Claude Code a skill also becomes a command you can type, which makes routines like a weekly review a one-word job.
Can my whole team share the same skills? On Claude’s Team and Enterprise plans, an owner can share skills across the organization.
Learn to build them with your team
Skills are one of the things we build together in Build Your Own AI Assistant: your team sets up Claude Code, connects it to your tools, and turns your routines (the weekly review, quotes, follow-ups) into skills and commands, in one session at your location. If you’re deciding which assistant to use in the first place, start with our Claude vs ChatGPT comparison.
Facts checked on 17 October 2026 on claude.com, support.claude.com and Anthropic’s documentation.
