Writing Skills for Claude Code

# Writing Skills for Claude Code A SKILL.md file teaches Claude Code a focused capability. Keep each skill narrow and composable — one intent per file. ## Structure 1. **Frontmatter** — `name`, `description`, `when-to-use`. 2. **Overview** — one paragraph explaining what the skill does. 3. **Instructions** — numbered steps Claude should follow. 4. **Examples** — concrete request/response pairs. 5. **Guardrails** — what Claude must *not* do. ## Rules for authoring - Prefer verbs in the title ("Write a migration plan", not "Migrations"). - Make `when-to-use` match how a user phrases the request. - Cap the body at ~2 KB. If it grows, split into multiple skills. - Reference tools by name, not version, unless the version matters. ## Installation path ``` ~/.claude/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md ``` Claude Code auto-discovers every `SKILL.md` under that directory.