Anthropic's Claude Skills: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Custom AI Expertise

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Developers can now create custom Claude Skills using a structured SKILL.md file that tells Claude when and how to apply specialized behavior. Each skill lives in its own named folder containing a YAML frontmatter header with a name and description, followed by Markdown instructions covering usage, standards, and output format. Installation differs by platform: Claude.ai users upload a zipped folder, while Claude Code users save the skill directory locally under a designated path. Optional scripts can be added for deterministic operations, and large reference material should be stored in separate linked files to optimize loading. Testing involves both a direct invocation and a comparison session with the skill disabled to verify it meaningfully improves Claude's responses.

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