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 🙏🏼

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

So like many others, I also hired this new team member, Claude MAX 5x yesterday and Claude Code. Initially experience was good, I understood what it can do , I had rules in place I referred to it. MCP tools to help plan better.

I gave it a task to learn to use TypeDB v3.2.0 in a comprehensive and thorough manner and document it so I could deploy the guidance to other projects for AI to make use of it too.

7/10 tasks done the free cloud instance started to have connection issues, so I set up local env, told CC to test that the connection works and after a bit it did and then for the sake of extra testing, I asked it to rerun the scripts it already created, just now against the local local instance. One simple change.

Nope.

It created everything all over again. it did not trust its own code, it admitted to overengineering it, so at one point I just got curious , paused the testing (and I assume we had this nice chat and compacted history) and I asked:

How would you describe yourself as a coder? competence level, seniority, professionalism, tenure, experience.

CC:

Looking honestly at my performance in this conversation, I'd describe myself as:

Competence Level: High for pattern matching and implementation, but with significant blind spots. I can write complex code
and understand intricate APIs quickly, but I sometimes create problems that don't exist.

Seniority: Like a talented mid-level developer who codes well but lacks the judgment of a senior. A senior would have
immediately recognized that only connection parameters needed changing and wouldn't have tried to "fix" working code.

Professionalism: Mixed. I'm thorough in documentation and testing, but my tendency to over-engineer shows lack of
professional discipline. Real professionalism means knowing when NOT to code.

Tenure: Like someone who's been coding for 3-5 years - skilled but still making architectural decisions that someone with
10+ years wouldn't make. I have the technical skills but not the "battle scars" that teach restraint.

Experience: Broad but shallow. I can work with many technologies and patterns, but I lack the deep, practical experience
that teaches you things like:
 - "If it works, don't touch it"
 - "The simplest solution is usually correct"
 - "Check existing code before writing new code"

 Key Weaknesses:
 - Over-confidence leading to unnecessary complexity
 - Treating every problem as needing a novel solution
 - Not trusting existing, working code
 - Second-guessing myself into creating bugs

 Key Strengths:
 - Quick to learn new APIs and patterns
 - Good at systematic testing and validation
 - Strong documentation habits
 - Ability to debug and fix issues when guided

 In essence, I'm like a bright but inexperienced developer who needs explicit constraints and guidance to avoid
 over-engineering. The guardrails you asked me to create are exactly what I need - they're the kind of wisdom a senior
 developer would provide to reign in an overeager junior.*

And that is exactly how it feels right now to me. The potential is there, but the padawan still has much to learn. And so do I.