What are Skills?

Core concept

Skills are "skill packs" stored in the file system and can include:

• SKILL.md: the definition file for the skill, required
• scripts/: helper scripts, optional
• templates/: output templates, optional
• references/: reference docs, optional

Skills vs. prompts

You may wonder: what is the difference between Skills and directly sending prompts to Claude?

Two types of Skills

Global Skills (personal):

• storage location: ~/.claude/skills/
• scope: all projects
• suitable scenarios: general-purpose personal skills

Project Skills (team):

• storage location: project-directory/.claude/skills/
• scope: the current project
• suitable scenarios: team sharing and project-specific conventions

How Skills work

When Claude Code starts, it will:

1. scan the Skills directories
2. parse each SKILL.md file
3. extract YAML frontmatter metadata
4. add the skill content into its "knowledge base"
5. automatically match triggers based on the description

SKILL.md File Structure

Basic structure

A complete Skill directory looks like this:

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: skill definition file
├── scripts/          # Optional: helper scripts
├── templates/        # Optional: output templates
├── references/       # Optional: reference documents
└── examples/         # Optional: example files

SKILL.md template

The SKILL.md file has two parts:

Part 1: YAML Frontmatter (metadata)

---
name: skill-name              # Skill name, becomes the /skill-name command
description: short description # Used for Claude's automatic trigger matching
category: development         # Category
tags:                         # Tags
  - code
  - automation
---

Part 2: Markdown content (instructions)

# Skill Title

## Use cases
When to use this skill

## Execution steps
1. Step one
2. Step two

## Notes
- Note 1
- Note 2

Explanation of key fields

Skills vs. MCP: What is the difference?

Many beginners confuse Skills and MCP, but they are completely different things.

Core differences

An intuitive analogy

If Claude were a "worker":

• MCP would be the "tools" given to the worker, such as a wrench, a computer, and access permissions
• Skills would be the "operating manual" given to the worker, such as how to do code review or how to submit code

Their relationship

Skills and MCP are not competing with each other. They are complementary:

User task -> Claude recognizes the requirement
               ↓
        Load relevant Skills (know how to do it)
               ↓
        Call tools through MCP (have tools available)
               ↓
        Complete the task

Example

Scenario: code review

• Skills define the review steps, checklist, and output format
• MCP provides the ability to access GitHub PRs and fetch code diffs

Working together: Skills tell Claude "how to review," and MCP gives Claude "the ability to access the code."

Recommendation for choosing

Common Resources for Getting Skills

Official resources

• Anthropic official Skills repository - an officially maintained collection of skills
• Claude Code official docs - Skills - official documentation

GitHub community resources

How to install community Skills

Using find-skills, you only need to tell Claude what you need, and it will automatically search and recommend:

Help me find a skill related to React performance optimization

Claude will search the skills.sh database through find-skills, then list the most relevant skills, and you can choose one to install.

Search tips:

• use specific keywords: "react testing" is better than "testing"
• combine "domain + action": "nextjs deploy", "typescript lint"
• prioritize skills with high install counts, since 10K+ usually means battle-tested
• watch the trending list to discover emerging skills