How to Build Skills in Claude

Teach Claude your exact process and never re-explain it.

Hey friends 👋

Welcome to another Signal Pro workflow issue.

A few weeks ago, I published the Cowork setup guide. Hundreds of you set up the three context files and started delegating real work to Claude.

Then the messages started coming in.

“The setup is great. But I keep typing the same instructions over and over. Every time I want a slide deck, I have to give an example and describe my brand. Even when I draft client emails, I re-state or have to correct the tone.”

I had the exact same problem. And I ignored it for longer than I should have.

Then I stopped prompting and started creating Skills for my most frequent workflows.

A Skill is a set of instructions that teaches Claude how to do one specific task the same way every time. You write the instructions once, save them as a file, and from that point on, Claude just knows.

You just describe the outcome, and Claude follows your exact process to get there. The whole thing is built through conversation, no code or technical ability needed.

Today I’ll show you:

• What Skills actually are (and how they differ from prompts, context files, and projects)

• How to build a Skill step by step using a branded slide deck as the example

• The five Skills I use most, with the exact templates so you can install them yourself

What are Skills?

A Skill is a folder containing a file called SKILL.md (a plain text file in Markdown format) plus any supporting files Claude might need: templates, reference documents, example outputs, brand guidelines. The SKILL.md file is the instruction manual. The other files are the reference material.

Here’s what one looks like once installed. This is the branded presentation Skill I built for The Signal. I’ll walk through exactly how I made it shortly.

When you enable a Skill, Claude reads it automatically whenever the task matches. You don’t need to mention the Skill by name. Ask Claude to create a slide deck, and it uses the branded-deck Skill.

Think of it this way. Prompts are instructions you give once. Skills are instructions that persist forever.

If you’ve been following along, you already have global instructions, context files, and possibly Cowork projects set up. Skills add a new layer on top. Here’s how they all fit together:

• “Who am I?” → Context files (about-me.md, voice-and-style.md, working-rules.md)

• “How should Claude talk to me?” → Global instructions (set once in Settings)

• “What am I working on?” → Projects (dedicated workspaces with scoped memory)

• “How should this specific task be done?” → Skills (reusable task recipes)

They compound. A Skill for branded decks combined with context files that capture your voice, global instructions that tell Claude to ask before starting, and a project that holds your client’s brief is what the full stack looks like. Each layer handles a different job.

Skills work everywhere Claude does. Cowork, regular Claude chat, Code Tab, and the API. Any Skill you create and enable in your Claude Desktop settings is automatically available across all of these. Build a branded deck Skill for Cowork, and it also works when you’re in a regular Claude chat conversation.

Skills vs prompts

Most people who use Claude regularly have a workaround for repeating tasks, which often takes the form of a saved prompt. You keep it in a notes app or a text file, copy it into Claude when you need it, maybe tweak a few details, and hit enter. It works. But it’s manual. You have to remember to use it, find it, paste it, and adjust it every time.

A Skill is a saved prompt made permanent. Claude reads it automatically whenever the task matches. You don’t have to paste anything in or even mention the Skill by name. You just describe what you need, and Claude applies the right Skill automatically.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. A typical branded deck request without a Skill:

Create a 10-slide deck from this brief. Use Arial font throughout.
White backgrounds. Black primary text. Use #FA7641 for accent 
elements. Sentence case for all headings. No gradient fills. 
No 3D effects. Include slide numbers bottom-right. Title slide 
should have the company name centred with a thin accent line 
below it. Content slides should use a consistent header bar at 
the top in the accent colour with white text. Keep bullet points 
to 3-4 per slide max. Add a "Key takeaway" callout box on data 
slides using the accent colour at 15% opacity as background.

You’d have to use something like this every single time. And that’s just the formatting. You’d still need to specify the content structure, the narrative arc, how to handle data slides versus text slides, and what the closing slide should look like.

The same request with a branded-deck Skill enabled:

Create a 10-slide deck from this brief.

That’s it. Claude already knows your fonts, colours, layout rules, slide structure, and formatting preferences. It’s all in the Skill.

This is the same principle as the skill sheet technique from the Excel Copilot issue, just applied across everything Claude does.

How Skills work

There are two types of Skills:

Built-in Skills come pre-loaded. These handle common tasks like creating Word documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, and presentations. They’re good defaults but they’re generic. They don’t know your brand, your formatting preferences, or your company’s conventions.

Custom Skills are the ones you build yourself. These are where the real value lives. A custom Skill can encode everything from your slide deck brand standards to your exact weekly report format to how you like client emails structured.

First, make sure Skills are enabled. Go to Settings > Capabilities and confirm that “Code execution and file creation” is toggled on. Without this, Skills can’t function.

Next, go to Customize > Skills in the left sidebar. This is where all your Skills live. You’ll see any custom Skills you’ve added, plus the built-in skill-creator.

Beyond your own custom Skills, there’s a directory of pre-built Skills from Anthropic and partners. Click the + button and select Browse skills to see what’s available.

These include a canvas design Skill, a brand guidelines Skill, an internal comms Skill, and more. You can install any of them with one click. Worth browsing for inspiration before you build your own.

To create a custom Skill, click the + button → “Create skill”, and you’ll see three options:

For most people, "Create with Claude" is the path. It's what I used, and it took about five minutes. Let me show you how.

Building your first Skill (copy my workflow)

Here’s the complete walkthrough plus the five Skills I use every week.