Claude Skills, explained. And how to install your first one.
A skill is not a plugin, not a persona, and not magic. It's a plain text file that tells Claude how to do one thing well. Here's what that actually means, and how to have one running in the next five minutes.
01What a skill actually is
Strip away the branding and a Claude Skill is one file: SKILL.md. It's plain markdown with a short header (a name and a one-line description of when to use it) followed by instructions written in plain language: the steps to follow, the rules to hold to, the format to output in. Claude reads it only when the task matches, not on every single message, so it doesn't crowd out anything else.
The reason this matters more than it sounds: without a skill, you re-explain your method every time, in every new conversation. With one, you write the method once and Claude applies it consistently, whether that method is "how our studio audits a landing page" or "how our studio writes a subject line."
02Where skills come from
Three sources, in practice. Anthropic ships a set of official example skills (document creation, and a handful of technical ones) built into Claude itself. Community catalogs bundle hundreds or thousands of skills at once, general-purpose and uneven in quality. And individual studios or teams write their own, usually narrower and built from real, repeatable work rather than a generic template. That's the category the Operator Kit sits in: skills built the same way this studio already writes a welcome flow or a subject line, packaged so someone else can run the method too.
03Installing a skill on Claude.ai
Step 1. In Claude.ai, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on Skills if it isn't already.
Step 2. From the skill picker, upload a SKILL.md file directly, or browse an installed marketplace if one is connected.
Step 3. Start a new conversation and describe the task the skill covers. Claude loads it automatically when it matches. No slash command required unless the skill defines one.
04Installing a skill in Claude Code
Claude Code adds one more option: a plugin marketplace, which can bundle several skills at once behind a single install command.
# add a marketplace, then install a skill bundle from it
/plugin marketplace add <org>/<repo>
/plugin install <skill-name>@<marketplace>Prefer to install a single skill by hand instead of a whole marketplace? Drop its folder straight into your skills directory:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/my-skill
cp SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/my-skill/Before installing a community marketplace skill, open the SKILL.md itself and read it. It's plain text, not a compiled binary, so this takes thirty seconds and tells you exactly what it will and won't do. Treat an unreadable or obfuscated "skill" the way you'd treat an unreadable browser extension.
05Writing your own
The fastest way in is to write down a process you already repeat: the steps, in order, plus the rules you always apply (tone, format, what never to include). Save it as SKILL.md with a one-line description at the top of when Claude should reach for it. That's a working first draft. Refining it into something reliable enough to hand to someone else, the way the studio's own kit was built, is worth its own guide.
The Operator Kit
Twelve skills, already written from real studio work.
Welcome flows, subject lines, landing pages, brand positioning, and more. $2 each, or $5 for all twelve. See the Operator Kit.