Skill Creator

A comprehensive guide for creating effective Claude skills that extend Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, and tool integrations. Skills are modular, self-contained packages that transform Claude from a general-purpose agent into a specialized agent equipped with domain-specific procedural knowledge. This skill provides the framework, best practices, and tooling for building professional skills.

Skill creation follows a systematic six-step process:

Step 1: Understanding with Concrete Examples

• Gather examples of how the skill will be used
• Ask clarifying questions about functionality and trigger phrases
• Build clear understanding before implementation

Step 2: Planning Reusable Contents

• Analyze examples to identify reusable resources
• Determine what scripts, references, and assets are needed
• Plan the skill's structure

Step 3: Initialize the Skill

• Run scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --path <output-directory>
• Generate template with proper frontmatter and resource directories

Step 4: Edit the Skill

• Create scripts/ (executable code for deterministic tasks)
• Create references/ (documentation loaded as needed)
• Create assets/ (files used in output)
• Write SKILL.md using imperative/infinitive form

Step 5: Package the Skill

• Run scripts/package_skill.py <path/to/skill-folder>
• Automatic validation of structure and content
• Creates distributable zip file

Step 6: Iterate

• Test skill on real tasks
• Notice struggles and inefficiencies
• Update and improve