create-skill_skill

Overview

This skill guides you through creating well-structured Claude Code skills with correct YAML frontmatter, focused descriptions, and supporting files. It explains where to place skills, how to name them, how to write trigger-rich descriptions, and how to organize optional scripts and templates. Use it when you need to add, extend, or package custom AI capabilities for personal or project use.

How this skill works

The guide inspects the proposed skill metadata and directory layout, checks naming and description rules, and recommends which supporting files to include. It highlights required frontmatter fields, tool restriction options, and conventions for relative paths and Unix-style separators. It also provides a creation checklist and a testing workflow to validate activation and permissions.

When to use it

• You want to create a new custom Claude Code skill for personal or team use.
• You are designing or extending a skill and need frontmatter and structure guidance.
• You need to prepare a skill for version-controlled project distribution.
• You must restrict tool access for security-sensitive workflows.
• You want to test why a skill is not activating or debug loading issues.

Best practices

• Give each skill one clear purpose and a descriptive, searchable name.
• Include both WHAT the skill does and WHEN it should trigger in the description.
• Use lowercase, numbers, and hyphens for names and keep descriptions concise.
• Keep complex details in supporting files and reference them with relative Unix-style paths.
• Use allowed-tools only when necessary to limit permissions; omit to allow full access.
• Test activation with realistic trigger phrases and run the system in debug mode for errors.

Example use cases

• Create a PDF processor skill that extracts text, parses tables, and merges documents for a document automation pipeline.
• Build a read-only code auditor that restricts tools to Read/Grep for security reviews.
• Add a project-specific skill in the repo to automate release-note generation from commit history.
• Package a template-and-script skill that generates boilerplate code using helper scripts and templates.