Skills (Work Manuals for AI)

Unlike one-off prompts, skills are reusable work manuals provided to AI to automate repetitive tasks and achieve consistent quality.

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Why Use Skills?

Reason	Description
Repetitive automation	Automatically execute complex tasks with a single short keyword like /ppt
Consistent quality	Enforces a fixed order, format, and checklist to always produce the same output
Team sharing	Share via Git so the entire team uses the same automation system

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CLAUDE.md vs Custom Commands vs Skills

	CLAUDE.md	Custom Commands	Skills
Load timing	Always fully loaded	Loaded on call	Loaded only when needed
Context cost	High	Medium	Very low
Use case	Global rules	Repetitive workflows	Domain expertise

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Two-Stage Loading (The Core)

Two-stage loading is precisely why skills save context.

Stage 1 (Idle)
  → Only the skill name + one-line description is loaded (~50–100 bytes)
  → Occupies almost no context

Stage 2 (On call)
  → Only when the request is determined to match the skill's purpose
  → Loads the full SKILL.md body + all referenced files (on-demand)

CLAUDE.md and MCP tools always load their full content, but skills are loaded only when needed, dramatically conserving context.

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Where to Store Skills

~/.claude/skills/          # Personal (used across all projects)
.claude/skills/            # Project-specific (used only in that project)

To share with your team, place them in .claude/skills/ and commit to Git.

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Creating a Skill

Method 1 — Auto-generate with a plugin (recommended)

/install-plugin skill-creator

After installation, request in natural language and it will automatically generate a SKILL.md with best practices applied.

"Create a skill that automatically generates PPT presentations"

Method 2 — Write manually

Create a .claude/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md file and write it using the structure below.

---
name: ppt-generator
description: Automatically generates PPT presentations. Triggered by requests like
             'make a PPT', 'create slides', or 'I need presentation materials'.
             Converts markdown into a slide structure.
---

# PPT Generation Skill

## Execution Order
1. Identify the topic and target audience
2. Draft a table of contents and confirm
3. Write the content for each slide
4. Add key message emphasis points

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Writing the Description Is Everything

For a skill to trigger correctly, you need to write a good description.

❌ Bad example
description: Document generation skill

✅ Good example  
description: Automatically generates PPT presentations. Triggered by requests like
             'make a PPT', 'I need slides', or 'create presentation materials'.
             Proceeds in order: write table of contents → fill in content.

It's best to include core functionality + at least 3 trigger expressions users are likely to say.

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Real-World Usage Examples

/client-report   # Automatically generate a client report
/code-review     # Run a code review checklist
/ppt             # Generate a PPT presentation
/deploy-check    # Run a pre-deployment checklist

💡 You might confuse this with custom commands (.claude/commands/).
Commands execute a defined workflow; skills inject domain expertise into the AI.