I've heard Skills might be the next big thing that changes the ai game. But I just can't get my head around them. My use case is mainly Claude Web with projects that help me build resources for work.

How is a Skill different from custom instructions? How is a Skill different from projects?

You could make an email Skill to write like you, but you could also make a project that does the same.

Or I have this project that is instructed "If A, find X google drive document, if B, find Y. Heres the links" - Could Skills replace this part of the prompt which could help with tokens?

Please explain like I'm 10 🙏🏼

Okay so Skills dropped last month and I've been testing them nonstop. Some are genuinely useful, others are kinda whatever. Here's what I actually use:

1. Rube MCP Connector - This one's wild. Connect Claude to like 500 apps (Slack, GitHub, Notion, etc) through ONE server instead of setting up auth for each one separately. Saves so much time if you're doing automation stuff.

2. Superpowers - obra's dev toolkit. Has /brainstorm, /write-plan, /execute-plan commands that basically turn Claude into a proper dev workflow instead of just a chatbot. Game changer if you're coding seriously.

3. Document Suite - Official one. Makes Claude actually good at Word/Excel/PowerPoint/PDF. Not just reading them but ACTUALLY creating proper docs with formatting, formulas, all that. Built-in for Pro users.

4. Theme Factory - Upload your brand guidelines once, every artifact Claude makes follows your colors/fonts automatically. Marketing teams will love this.

5. Algorithmic Art - p5.js generative art but you just describe it. "Blue-purple gradient flow field, 5000 particles, seed 42" and boom, reproducible artwork. Creative coders eating good.

6. Slack GIF Creator - Custom animated GIFs optimized for Slack. Instead of searching Giphy, just tell Claude what you want. Weirdly fun.

7. Webapp Testing - Playwright automation. Tell Claude "test the login flow" and it writes + runs the tests. QA engineers this is for you.

8. MCP Builder - Generates MCP server boilerplate. If you're building custom integrations, this cuts setup time by like 80%.

9. Brand Guidelines - Similar to Theme Factory but handles multiple brands. Switch between them easily.

10. Systematic Debugging - Makes Claude debug like a senior dev. Root cause → hypotheses → fixes → documentation. No more random stabbing.

Quick thoughts:

• Skills are just markdown files with YAML metadata (super easy to make your own)

• They're token-efficient (~30-50 tokens until loaded)

• Work across Claude.ai, Claude Code, and API

• Community ones on GitHub are hit or miss, use at your own risk

The Rube connector and Superpowers are my daily drivers now. Document Suite is clutch when clients send weird file formats.

Anyone else trying these? What am I missing?

Resources:

• Claude Skills repo

• Superpowers

• Rube

I spent some time building skills for SvelteKit - detailed guides on Svelte 5 runes, data flow patterns, routing. They were supposed to activate autonomously based on their descriptions.

They didn't.

Skills just sat there whilst Claude did everything manually. Basically a coin flip.

So I built a testing framework and ran 200+ tests to figure out what actually works.

The results:

- No hooks: 0% activation

- Simple instruction hook: 20% (the coin flip)

- LLM eval hook: 80% (fastest, cheapest)

- Forced eval hook: 84% (most consistent)

The difference? Commitment mechanisms.

Simple hooks are passive suggestions Claude ignores. The forced eval hook makes Claude explicitly evaluate EACH skill with YES/NO reasoning before proceeding.

Once Claude writes "YES - need reactive state" it's committed to activating that skill.

Key finding: Multi-skill prompts killed the simple hook (0% on complex tasks). The forced hook never completely failed a category.

All tests run with Claude Haiku 4.5 at ~$0.006 per test. Full testing framework and hooks are open source.

Full write-up: https://scottspence.com/posts/how-to-make-claude-code-skills-activate-reliably

Testing framework: https://github.com/spences10/svelte-claude-skills

So Claude Skills dropped last week and honestly, I’ve been down a rabbit hole watching what the community’s been shipping. For those who haven’t tried it yet - Skills are basically persistent instructions/code/resources that Claude can load when it needs them. Once you install a Skill, Claude just knows how to do that thing across all your conversations.

The crazy part? People are building genuinely useful stuff in HOURS, not weeks.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

🔥 The Meta One: Skill-Creator

Anthropic made a Skill that builds Skills for you. Yeah, you read that right. You just describe what you want in plain English, and it writes the SKILL.md file for you. I tested it yesterday and it’s actually really good. Demo (47 seconds): https://youtube.com/watch?v=kS1MJFZWMq4

🤖 Auto-Generation Tool: Skill Seekers

u/Critical-Pea-8782 built something wild - a tool that auto-generates Claude Skills from ANY documentation site.

• Feed it a docs URL

• Wait 25 minutes

• Get a production-ready Skill

It has presets for React, Vue, Django, Godot, FastAPI… basically any major framework. GitHub: https://github.com/yusufkaraaslan/Skill_Seekers I tried this with the Godot docs and it actually works. The Skill it generated knows way more about Godot than base Claude.

📚 Community Collections

A few people have started curating all the Skills being created:

BehiSecc’s Collection: https://github.com/BehiSecc/awesome-claude-skills Includes: CSV analyzers, research assistants, YouTube transcript fetchers, EPUB parsers, git automation, and a bunch more.

travisvn’s Collection: https://github.com/travisvn/awesome-claude-skills Similar vibe but with more enterprise/workflow focus. Both are actively maintained and honestly just browsing these gives you ideas.

🎨 Official Anthropic Skills Pack

Anthropic shipped 15 Skills out of the gate. The document creation ones are actually really impressive:

• docx - Creates proper Word docs (not just markdown pretending to be Word)

• pptx - Actual PowerPoint files with layouts, charts, etc.

• xlsx - Excel with real formulas

• pdf - Form filling and manipulation

• canvas-design - Visual layouts in PNG/PDF

• brand-guidelines - Keeps everything on-brand

• algorithmic-art - Generative art with p5.js

• slack-gif-creator - Makes GIFs that fit Slack’s constraints

Plus more for internal comms, web testing, MCP server creation, etc. GitHub: https://github.com/anthropics/skills The document-skills folder is particularly interesting if you want to see how Anthropic approaches complex Skills.

🧠 Simon Willison’s Take: “Bigger Than MCP”

Simon Willison (the guy who reverse-engineered Skills before the official announcement) wrote a really good technical breakdown: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/16/claude-skills/

TLDR: Skills are more token-efficient than MCP and way easier to share. Each Skill only uses a few dozen tokens until it’s actually needed, then Claude loads the full details. His take is that Skills might end up being more important than MCP in the long run. Honestly? After using both, I kinda see his point.

🎬 Official Demo: Skills Chaining

Anthropic’s demo shows Skills working together automatically: PowerPoint Skill → Brand Guidelines Skill → Poster Design Skill All in one conversation. Claude just switches between them as needed. Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IoqpBKrNaZI

🤔 My Honest Take

I’ve been using Claude for months and Skills genuinely feel different. It’s not just “better prompts” - it’s more like giving Claude actual expertise that sticks around. The best part? Everything’s open-source. You can fork Skills, modify them, share them with your team. The barrier to entry is super low.

Downsides I’ve noticed:

• Some Skills work better than others (canvas-design got roasted on HN)

• You need Claude Pro/Team/Enterprise (not available on free tier)

• It’s still early - some rough edges But overall? This feels like a real step forward in making AI actually useful for specific workflows.

📢 What are you building?

Has anyone else been experimenting with Skills? What have you built? What Skills do you wish existed? I’m particularly curious if anyone’s made Skills for:

• API documentation (specific to your company)

• Data analysis workflows

• Content creation pipelines

• Design systems

Drop your Skills in the comments - let’s build this library together 👇

Edit:

Claude community is going crazy! Here are some more resources shared by our community members:

1. https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/87ae1fd6-3817-4af9-8459-8d5c6b9bc490

2. https://karozieminski.substack.com/p/claude-skills-anthropic-viral-toolkit-agentic-workflows-community-guide

3. https://edwin.genego.io/blog/claude-skills

4. https://github.com/abubakarsiddik31/claude-skills-collection

5. https://github.com/Doriandarko/golden-gate-claude-skill

6. https://github.com/PleasePrompto/notebooklm-skill

7. https://github.com/davila7/claude-code-templates

8. https://mcpservers.org/claude-skills