What are skills? — Transcript

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1. 0:03Every time you explain your team's
2. 0:05coding standards to Claude, you're
3. 0:07repeating yourself.
4. 0:09Every PR review, you redescribe how you
5. 0:12want feedback [music] structured. Every
6. 0:13commit message, you remind Claude of
7. 0:16your preferred format.
8. 0:18And skills fix this.
9. 0:20A skill is a markdown file that teaches
10. 0:22Claude how [music] to do something once,
11. 0:24and Claude applies that knowledge
12. 0:26automatically whenever it's relevant.
13. 0:32Agent skills are folders of
14. 0:34instructions, scripts, and resources
15. 0:36that agents can discover and use to do
16. 0:38things more accurately and efficiently.
17. 0:41With Claude Code, we have the skill.md
18. 0:43file.
19. 0:45The description is how Claude decides
20. 0:47whether to use the skill. When you ask
21. 0:49Claude to review this PR, it matches
22. 0:52your request against available skill
23. 0:53descriptions and finds this one.
24. 0:57Claude reads your request, compares it
25. 0:58to all available skill descriptions, and
26. 1:00activates the ones that match.
27. 1:05You can store skills in a few places
28. 1:07depending on who needs them.
29. 1:10Personal skills go in the home directory
30. 1:13.claude/skills
31. 1:15and follow you across all your project.
32. 1:17These are your preferences, your commit
33. 1:19message style, your documentation
34. 1:21format, how you like code explained.
35. 1:24Project skills go in the .claude/skills
36. 1:27inside of the root directory of your
37. 1:29repository. Anyone who clones the
38. 1:31repository gets these skills
39. 1:32automatically. This is where team
40. 1:34standards live, like your company's
41. 1:36brand guidelines, preferred fonts, and
42. 1:38colors that you use for web design.
43. 1:43Claude Code has several ways to
44. 1:44customize behavior.
45. 1:46Skills are unique because they're
46. 1:48automatic and task-specific.
47. 1:51Claude.md files load into every
48. 1:52conversation. If you want Claude to
49. 1:55always use TypeScript strict mode, that
50. 1:57goes in your claw.md file. Skills, on
51. 1:59the other hand, load on demand when they
52. 2:01match your request. It only loads in the
53. 2:04name and description, so it doesn't fill
54. 2:06up your entire context window. Your PR
55. 2:09review checklist doesn't need to be in
56. 2:11the context when you're debugging.
57. 2:13It loads when you actually ask for a
58. 2:16review.
59. 2:17Slash commands require you to type them.
60. 2:19Skills don't.
61. 2:21Claude applies them when it recognizes
62. 2:23the situation.
63. 2:27Skills work best for specialized
64. 2:29knowledge that applies to specific
65. 2:31tasks.
66. 2:32Code review standards your team follows,
67. 2:34commit message formats that you prefer,
68. 2:37brand guidelines of your organization.
69. 2:42If you find yourself explaining the same
70. 2:44thing [music] to Claude repeatedly,
71. 2:46well,
72. 2:47that's a skill waiting to be written.