mediar-ai/packages/skills/skills/skill-creator

Skill Creator

Guide for creating effective skills that extend Claude's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, and tool integrations.

Prerequisites

• Clear understanding of skill purpose
• Concrete usage examples
• Knowledge of target domain

Instructions

Step 1: Understand with Concrete Examples

• What functionality should the skill support?
• How will it be used? (trigger phrases, use cases)
• What would a user say to trigger this skill?

Step 2: Plan Reusable Contents

Identify what to include:

• scripts/: Executable code for deterministic tasks
• references/: Documentation loaded as needed
• assets/: Templates, images, fonts for output

Step 3: Initialize the Skill

scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --path <output-directory>

Creates: SKILL.md template, example directories

Step 4: Edit the Skill

SKILL.md Structure:

---
name: skill-name
description: What it does AND when to use it
---

# Instructions in Markdown

Key Principles:

• Concise is key - context window is shared
• Only add context Claude doesn't already have
• Set appropriate degrees of freedom (high/medium/low)

Progressive Disclosure:

• Metadata (~100 words) - always in context
• SKILL.md body (<5k words) - when triggered
• Bundled resources - as needed

Step 5: Package the Skill

scripts/package_skill.py <path/to/skill-folder>

Validates and creates .skill file for distribution.

Step 6: Iterate

Test on real tasks, identify struggles, improve, repeat.

Error Handling

• If validation fails, fix errors and re-package
• Don't create extraneous docs (README, CHANGELOG)
• Keep SKILL.md under 500 lines

Notes

• Skills are "onboarding guides" for specific domains
• Default assumption: Claude is already smart
• Avoid deeply nested references

Source: anthropics/skills