Step 1 of 5
What Are Claude Skills?
Understand what a skill is and when Claude reaches for one.
A skill is a folder of instructions Claude loads on demand when a task matches what the skill is for. Instead of putting every procedure into one giant prompt, you package a repeatable workflow — the steps, the conventions, the gotchas — into a self-contained unit Claude can pull in exactly when it is relevant.
The key word is on demand. Claude does not read every skill on every turn. It reads a short description of each available skill, and when the current task looks like a match, it opens that skill and follows it.
Why this matters
- Context stays lean — only the relevant skill is loaded, not all of them.
- Workflows become reusable — write the procedure once, reuse it across sessions and projects.
- Behavior becomes predictable — the same task routes to the same instructions every time.