Skills: .claude/skills/*/SKILL.md

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Skills are Claude Code's way of extending its capabilities with specialized knowledge and workflows. Think of them as plugins that teach Claude new tricks specific to your project.

Skills live in the .claude/skills directory, with each skill in its own subdirectory containing a SKILL.md file. This markdown file defines what the skill does, when to use it, and how it works.

For example, you might create a skill for your specific testing framework, documenting how to write tests in your project's style. Or a skill for your deployment process, capturing the steps and commands needed to ship code. Or a skill for your API patterns, showing Claude how to structure endpoints consistently.

What makes skills powerful is that they're project-specific. Unlike subagents, which are more about role specialization, skills are about domain knowledge. They teach Claude about your unique processes, patterns, and practices.

When Claude encounters a task that matches a skill, it can invoke that skill and follow its instructions. This means you're not explaining the same patterns over and over - you document them once in a skill, and Claude remembers.

Skills turn Claude Code from a general coding assistant into one that truly understands your project's specific way of doing things.