Custom Skills

A collection of reusable skills for Claude Code and Cowork.

What are skills?

Skills are instruction sets that teach Claude how to handle specific tasks. Each skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file (and optionally supporting assets like templates, scripts, or examples). When Claude encounters a task that matches a skill's description, it reads the instructions and follows them to produce higher-quality, more consistent results.

Repo structure

custom-skills/
├── README.md
├── _template/          # Copy this to create a new skill
│   └── SKILL.md
├── my-skill/
│   └── SKILL.md
└── another-skill/
    ├── SKILL.md
    └── templates/
        └── ...

Installation

Option 1: Symlink the whole collection

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/dclancy13/custom-skills.git ~/custom-skills

# Symlink individual skills into your project's .claude/skills/ directory
ln -s ~/custom-skills/my-skill /path/to/project/.claude/skills/my-skill

Option 2: Symlink into your global Claude config

# For skills available across all projects
ln -s ~/custom-skills/my-skill ~/.claude/skills/my-skill

Option 3: Use the install script

# Install all skills to a target .claude/skills/ directory
./install.sh /path/to/project/.claude/skills

Creating a new skill

1. Copy the _template folder and rename it:

   cp -r _template my-new-skill

2. Edit my-new-skill/SKILL.md — follow the template's guidance for writing a good description and instructions.
3. Add any supporting files (templates, examples, scripts) to the skill folder.
4. Commit and push.

Writing effective skills

• Description matters most. The description block at the top of SKILL.md determines when Claude activates the skill. Be specific about trigger words and use cases.
• Be prescriptive. Tell Claude exactly what steps to follow, what tools to use, and what output to produce.
• Include examples. Concrete examples of inputs and expected outputs dramatically improve consistency.
• Keep it focused. One skill = one task domain. If a skill is doing too many things, split it.