How to Build Your First Claude Skill in 10 Minutes

A Claude skill is a tiny YAML file that teaches Claude how to handle a specific kind of task. You write the skill once, save it, and from then on Claude knows the workflow whenever you invoke it. The skill-creator skill is the meta-tool that builds other skills for you.

Here's the path from blank screen to your first working skill.

1. Start the skill-creator

In Claude Code, type:

/skill-creator

The skill loads. You'll see a prompt asking what you want to build.

2. Describe the skill in one sentence

This is the part most people overthink. Don't write a spec. Write a sentence. Examples that work:

• "A skill that drafts SEO meta titles and descriptions for blog posts."
• "A skill that converts customer interview transcripts into landing page hooks."
• "A skill that audits Google Ads accounts and flags wasted spend."

The skill-creator will ask follow-up questions to fill in the gaps. Don't try to answer everything upfront.

3. Iterate, don't optimize

When the skill-creator drafts your first version, run it. Use it against a real task. See where it stalls or asks the wrong question. Then go back and refine.

Two passes usually gets you to something genuinely useful. Three passes is overkill for most skills.

4. Save and ship

The skill saves as a YAML file under ~/.claude/skills/. Restart Claude (or run /skills reload) and your new skill is available. Trigger it with /skill-name going forward.

What I've found works

The best skills are narrow. A skill that does one thing well beats one that tries to handle five workflows. If your skill description has the word "and" in it more than once, split it into multiple skills.

The second thing that works: write the trigger description with the user's phrasing, not yours. If you'd say "draft an SEO title for this post," your skill's description should match that pattern — not "Generate optimized title tags following SEO best practices for content marketing."

What doesn't work

Trying to make the skill general. The point of a skill is that it's specific to your workflow with your constraints. A generic "writing skill" is just Claude with extra steps.