What is a skill?

A skill is a feature of AI coding assistants like Claude Code that you can use when you need to repeatedly do a series of steps. It can be especially useful if you want an entire team to follow the same steps.

For example, if you’re using Claude to build features and you always follow the same process: first, create a requirements doc, then collaborate on the doc, then build the feature, then write unit tests, then write browser tests. Without a skill, you’d have to explain all these steps every time you start a new feature. With a skill, you write down the steps once in a Markdown file, save it in your .claude/skills/ directory, and then just type /feature whenever you need it.

Skills are just Markdown files that contain instructions for the AI. When you use a skill, Claude Code reads that Markdown file and follows the instructions you wrote.

Here’s a simple example of what a skill file might look like:

# Deploy Skill

1. Run tests to make sure everything passes
2. Build the production bundle
3. Push to the main branch
4. Deploy to production server
5. Verify deployment was successful

Check out the docs for whatever AI coding assistant you use to learn how to create and use skills in your projects.