What are Claude "Skills"?

Anthropic launched Claude Skills three days ago (October 16th, 2025). However, I haven't seen enough discussions about them in my network, which I consider a mistake because they are shaping up to be more significant than MCPs.

What are Claude's Skills?

A "skill" is a feature that informs Language Models (currently Claude Models) about the actions it should perform by using modular, composable folders, containing instructions, scripts, and resources, which Claude can dynamically load when needed to enhance its performance on specialized tasks. In fact, Claude's "Create-Files" capability turned out to be a "skill"- Claude can now create and use files \ Anthropic.

So what makes it different from a system prompt with an MCP? Claude treats skills as on-demand tools. Claude will analyze all available "skill" files by reading their Markdown files' YAML front matter. This solves tons of headaches, mainly because it is extremely token-efficient.

Rather than getting the model's context window occupied with dozens of MCPs, you can have a dozen "Skills" at a fraction of the cost, ensuring that you don't fill up the model's context window before you even start coding or chatting.

How to Enable Skills

To use skills, simply:

1. Enable "Skills" in Claude Settings (if you are using a Team or Enterprise subscription, your admin must enable it organization-wide)
2. Explore Anthropic's pre-built skills for documents.
3. You can just read through the Skill Creator Guide to build custom skills correctly.
4. Use and share them :)

Summarizing the Anatomy of a Skill

While I suggest you check out the "Equipping agents..." article below, here is a summary of the anatomy of a "skill" (which honestly reminded me of the time I was reading about Databricks Asset Bundles at the start of 2025).

1. Level 0: The core structure contains a folder that organizes all the instructions, scripts, and resources, which Claude then copies into the code execution container at /skills/{directory}/. To determine whether to use that folder, Claude has access to the respective skill's "SKILL.md", which Claude follows as instructions when the skill is active.
2. Level 1 Metadata Discovery: The "SKILL.md" begins with a YAML front matter, containing the required metadata, which we can consider the first level of progressive disclosure. It includes two parts: 1) a "name" identifier, and 2) a "description" outlining when Claude should use the skill.
3. The agent pre-loads the "name" and "description of every installed skill into its system prompt. This is efficient because a skill requires a low number of tokens at a high level.
4. Level 2 Markdown Body: This is the main body of the "SKILL.md"; it contains the complete set of instructions the model must follow, which Claude loads, given that it finds the "name" and "description" relevant for the task.
5. Level 3, Linked Files, resources, and executable tools: A skill can bundle additional files within its skill directory and reference them by name from its "SKILL.md". This is needed when the markdown becomes too large and you want to separate the skills (e.g., reference.md and forms.md)
6. Scripts and Executable Code: Apart from instructions, skills can include code snippets and scripts that are bundled alongside the instructions. This could be a PDF skill to extract form fields, a deterministic algorithm, or a validating file size feature, such as "check_slack_size()" in a "slack-gif-creator" skill.

Example Artifacts

I created two quick "skills" by having Claude help me out (that's why you don't see a description, but an overview field).

1. prd-creation-skill.md - A simple skill that, when called, will create a product requirement document based on the instructions below.
2. Jira-backlog-monitoring-skill.md - A backlog management skill that will make Claude perform several backlog health checks (given it has access to your Atlassian API Key/MCP to read and modify your Jira instance).

Pricing

The pricing model depends on the "Claude" subscription you currently possess:

• Free: Anthropic doesn't support Skills for the free tier.
• Pro: Prebuilt Skills are available as a feature preview, but custom Skills are limited to individual users without centralized distribution. Developers have API access, although it requires enabling code execution, file creation, and per-Skill settings.
• Max: Includes pre-built Skills (feature preview) and limited, user-level custom Skills without organizational distribution; developers have API access, alongside higher usage limits and earlier feature availability compared to Pro.
• Team: Offers prebuilt Skills (feature preview) and enhanced support for custom Skills with collaboration tools. Organizational deployment occurs via the Console or version control systems, rather than through centralized admin distribution, with API access available.
• Enterprise: Provides prebuilt Skills (feature preview) and fully supported custom Skills with enterprise-grade control, ideal for large-scale deployments requiring governance. Onboarding assistance and API access are included; however, specific admin workflows should be confirmed directly with Anthropic.

Source: Claude Skills Pricing & Availability (2025): Which Plans Include Skills?

Additional Resources

It wouldn't be my article if I didn't bombard you with a lot of the information I hoarded, right?

1. NotebookLM notebook - A NotebookLM-based RAG chat you can use for Q&A about Claude Skills
2. Claude Artifact explaining Claude Skills (Oh, the irony) - the Claude Artifact
3. r/ClaudeAI thread - Gives you a good starting point for existing Claude Skills
4. The comments are beneficial -r/ClaudeCode thread and this r/ClaudeAI thread
5. If you hate reading blogs like this one, watch a 10-minute video instead - this video
6. BGR’s explainer - Great, non-technical explanation
7. the Off The Grid XP writeup - Semi-technical explanation
8. Applying prompt engineering and teaching Claude to use skills your way - Claude’s skills documentation
9. How to Get Started - TVA.sg’s guide

Sources

1. Claude Skills: Customize AI for your workflows \ Anthropic
2. Claude Skills are excellent, maybe a bigger deal than MCP - Simon Willison
3. What are Skills? | Claude Help Center
4. Equipping agents for the real world with Agent Skills \ Anthropic
5. GitHub - anthropics/skills: Public repository for Skills
6. Claude Skills Pricing & Availability (2025): Which Plans Include Skills?