Skills

Skills are reusable prompt-type commands — markdown files that provide structured instructions to the AI model. They are loaded from bundled, user, project, and plugin directories.

Overview

Skills are commands of type prompt — they expand to text that is sent to the model. Unlike plugins (which provide JavaScript code), skills are purely instructional. They bridge the gap between ad-hoc prompts and full plugin development.

Skill Locations

Skills are loaded from four sources (order: bundled → user → project → plugin):

Skill Structure

my-skill/
  SKILL.md              # Skill instructions (required)
  assets/               # Optional: scripts, references, examples

The SKILL.md file uses frontmatter for metadata and markdown for instructions. Skills are registered as prompt-type commands and can be invoked by the model via the SkillTool.

Managing Skills

/skill            # List available skills or show skill details
/skills           # List available skills
/skill-name       # Invoke a specific skill directly

Creating a Skill

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/my-skill
touch ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md
# Edit SKILL.md with frontmatter and instructions

Or use the skillify plugin to create a skill from an existing workflow.

Project-Level Skills

Place skills in .claude/skills/ inside your repository to share with your team:

.claude/
  skills/
    code-review/
      SKILL.md
    migration-workflow/
      SKILL.md

Project skills are automatically available to everyone working in the repository.

Dynamic Skills

Skills can be discovered dynamically during file operations. When a skill file is created or modified, it's automatically added to the available command list without restarting. Use clearCommandMemoizationCaches() to refresh the skill index.