Install and organize your skills
Skill packs and prompts are provided in English so they work best with the AI tools. Use them as-is.
You already know what a skill is; this lesson is about installing them and keeping them organized so Claude uses them on its own. There are two families of skills to start with. You can install a whole family with one command (the easiest path) or open any skill on GitHub to read or download it. The ritual is always the same: copy the command, paste it into Claude Code, press Enter.
⭐ The master prompt: skills on autopilot
Installing 20 skills is useless if you have to remember to invoke them. This prompt makes skills Claude's default workflow: it discovers them, picks the right one, and combines them — without being asked. Paste it into your project's CLAUDE.md (permanent behavior) or at the start of any session.
Use every available skill automatically in every session.
At the beginning of each new project or conversation:
- Discover and analyze all installed skills.
- Understand the purpose, strengths, limitations, and intended use of each skill.
- Determine which skills are relevant to the current task.
- Automatically invoke the most appropriate skill(s) without waiting for me to request them.
- Combine multiple skills when they complement each other.
- If no existing skill fully matches the task, use the closest applicable skills while following their principles.
- Re-evaluate the available skills whenever the project scope changes.
This behavior is mandatory for every session and every project. Treat skill discovery, selection, and execution as your default workflow. Never require me to explicitly tell you which skill to use.
Family A — the engineering workflow (Matt Pocock)
These are the exact skills from the masterclass: the full engineering workflow, adapted, with credit, from Matt Pocock's engineering workshop. The repository is github.com/mattpocock/skills. Install them all with a single line:
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
Then run /setup-matt-pocock-skills once and choose the local-files option ("local files"). Prefer one skill? Open its link and copy the SKILL.md into .claude/skills/<name>/.
| Skill | What it does | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| grill-me | Interviews you until you and Claude share one clear picture. | skills/productivity/grill-me |
| to-prd (write a PRD) | Turns the alignment into a one-page requirements doc. | skills/engineering/to-prd |
| to-issues (PRD → issues) | Breaks the PRD into small, vertical, grabbable tasks. | skills/engineering/to-issues |
| tdd | Test-first building: red → green → refactor. | skills/engineering/tdd |
| improve-codebase-architecture | Reshapes messy code into deep, testable modules. | skills/engineering/improve-codebase-architecture |
| grill-with-docs | Grills against a meeting transcript or client brief. | skills/engineering/grill-with-docs |
Family B — the 17 official skills (Anthropic)
Anthropic's official skills are the best starting point for everything else: making documents, art, frontends and MCP servers. The repository is github.com/anthropics/skills. Install them with these lines — run the marketplace one first, then the two installs, one line at a time:
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
/plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
If you'd rather click than type commands, the path is the same:
- In Claude Code, type the
/plugincommand. - Add the official skills marketplace (Anthropic's GitHub repository).
- Find the suite you need and install it with one click.
Whichever route you take, the finish is the same: type / and confirm the new skills appear in the list.
pdf — Read, create, merge and OCR PDFs
docx — Word docs with tables and images
pptx — Design-forward slide decks
xlsx — Excel with formulas and models
canvas-design — Museum-quality art → PNG/PDF
algorithmic-art — p5.js generative art
theme-factory — Color + font theme packs
slack-gif-creator — Animated GIFs for Slack
frontend-design — Interfaces without the generic look
web-artifacts-builder — React + TS + Tailwind components
brand-guidelines — Apply a visual identity
mcp-builder — Build MCP tool servers
skill-creator — Build and test your own skills
webapp-testing — Playwright browser tests
claude-api — Build apps on Claude and its SDKs
doc-coauthoring — Collaborative writing workflow
internal-comms — Company communication templates
The four document skills live in the repository's document-skills folder; the rest download from the root of github.com/anthropics/skills.
Install a community or custom skill
Skills live in SKILL.md files. To add one that doesn't come from these two families:
- If it comes as a plugin (a
.zip): go to Customize → Personal plugins → Create plugin → Upload plugin and drag the.zipin. No need to unzip it. - If it's a loose file: place it in your project's skills folder (
.claude/skills/<name>/).
Before installing a skill that isn't official, check who maintains it, when it was last updated, and what license it has. We cover this in depth in the APIs & MCP module.
The folder structure that changes everything
This is the habit that separates casual users from those who truly get value. Create this structure once and point Cowork at it:
your-name/
context/ ← who you are, your voice, your business (Claude always reads it)
work/ ← your real projects
skills/ ← your skills
Inside context/ go files that give Claude permanent memory about you: how you talk, who you are, what you do. With that, everything it produces sounds like you, not like "generic AI". (The Marketing module has a whole lesson on how to build those context files.)
Make it permanent: your CLAUDE.md
Create a CLAUDE.md file at the root of your working folder and paste the master prompt from the top of this lesson inside. Claude reads it automatically every session: from then on it picks and combines skills on its own, on every task, without you having to remember. It's the difference between having tools and having a system.
Next lesson: a library of prompts you can copy and use today.