Skills — skill packages for specialized tasks

Skills are folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude dynamically loads to improve performance on specialized tasks. Think of them as expert packages: they teach Claude to perform specific tasks in a repeatable way. If you have ever asked Claude to create an Excel spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation, a Word document, or a PDF file, you have already seen Skills in action. These file creation capabilities work precisely thanks to Skills running in the background. The key distinction between Skills and a regular conversation: Skills encode not just "what" needs to be done, but "how" it should be done — the specific steps, the order of operations, and the methodology that you want applied every time. This makes results predictable and reproducible, which is critically important for workflows that need to be run over and over again.

There are two types of Skills. The first type is Skills from Anthropic. These are skills created and maintained by Anthropic. They include advanced document creation capabilities for Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files. Built-in Skills are available to all paid users, and Claude invokes them automatically when needed. You don't need to do anything special to use them. The second type is custom Skills. You or your organization create them yourselves for specialized workflows and tasks specific to your field. For example, you could create a skill that applies corporate brand standards to presentations, structures meeting notes in a specific format, or executes your organization's analytical processes. Custom Skills allow you to literally "train" Claude on your specific workflows, standards, and ways of working, so that it applies this knowledge automatically in any suitable situation.

Skills are currently available as a feature preview for users on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. To use Skills, you need to enable code execution and file creation, since Skills require Claude's secure computing environment. The enabling procedure: go to Settings, the "Capabilities" section, make sure the "Code execution and file creation" toggle is on, scroll down to the Skills section, and enable or disable individual skills as needed. For enterprise plans, organization owners must first enable both code execution and Skills in the admin settings before individual members can access them. Once enabled, the beauty of Skills is that you usually don't need to think about them. Claude automatically chooses the right skill based on your request. Examples of prompts that automatically invoke built-in Skills: "Create an Excel spreadsheet to track monthly expenses with formulas for totals" or "Turn these meeting notes into a PowerPoint presentation."

The easiest way to create a custom Skill is through a conversation with Claude itself. You don't need to write code or manually create files. Here's how it works. Step one: start a new chat and tell Claude what you want to create. For example: "I want to create a skill for writing quarterly business reviews" or "I need a skill that applies our corporate standards to presentations." Step two: answer Claude's questions. It will interview you about your workflow: what this skill should do, what a good result looks like for this type of work, whether you can provide examples of usage. Step three: upload reference materials, if you have any. Templates, style guides, branded materials, or work examples — all of this helps Claude understand exactly what you're looking for. Step four: download the skill. Upon completion, Claude generates a downloadable ZIP file with your structured skill. Step five: upload it in settings via the "Skills" section and click "Upload skill." After that, Claude will automatically apply your skill whenever it works on relevant tasks.

Skills and Projects are different tools that complement each other. A simple way to remember the difference: Projects store knowledge, Skills execute tasks. Projects are knowledge repositories. They contain the reference materials Claude needs to understand your work: project specifications, meeting notes, research documents. When you upload files to a project, Claude draws on this information across all conversations inside the project. Projects answer the question "what" — what information is needed. Skills are process machines. They encode how Claude should perform a task: specific steps, the order of operations, and the methodology you want applied every time. Skills answer the question "how" — how the task should be performed. These two tools work great together. A skill can use knowledge stored in a project. For example, a "prepare for a client call" skill can draw information from client profiles uploaded to a project's knowledge base. The project provides the "what" — the information; the skill provides the "how" — the process.