Skill Creator

This skill helps you create new Claude Code skills with proper structure and best practices.

When to Use This Skill

• Creating a new custom skill for your project
• Standardizing skill structure across your team
• Generating skill templates with scripts, references, and assets
• Packaging skills for distribution

Skill Structure

A Claude skill consists of:

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: Main skill file with YAML frontmatter
├── scripts/          # Optional: Executable code for deterministic tasks
├── references/       # Optional: Documentation loaded contextually
└── assets/           # Optional: Templates, images, boilerplate (not loaded into context)

SKILL.md Format

Every skill requires a SKILL.md file with:

---
name: skill-name
description: One-line description of what the skill does and when to use it.
---

# Skill Name

Brief introduction explaining the skill's purpose.

## When to Use This Skill

- Trigger condition 1
- Trigger condition 2
- Trigger condition 3

## What This Skill Does

1. **Step 1**: Description
2. **Step 2**: Description
3. **Step 3**: Description

## How to Use

### Basic Usage
[Examples of how to invoke the skill]

### With Options
[Advanced usage patterns]

## Example

**User**: "Example prompt"

**Output**:
[Example output]

## Tips

- Best practice 1
- Best practice 2

## Related Use Cases

- Related task 1
- Related task 2

How to Use

Create a New Skill

Create a new skill called "my-skill-name" in ~/.claude/skills/

Create with Specific Purpose

Create a skill for generating release notes from git commits,
with templates for CHANGELOG.md and Slack announcements

Initialize Skill Structure

Run the initialization script:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --path <output-directory>

Package Skill for Distribution

python3 ~/.claude/skills/skill-creator/scripts/package_skill.py <path/to/skill-folder> [output-directory]

Design Principles

Progressive Disclosure

Context loads hierarchically to optimize token usage:

1. Metadata (~100 words): Always present via skill description
2. SKILL.md (<5k words): Loaded when skill is triggered
3. Bundled resources: Loaded as needed during execution

Organizational Patterns

Choose the pattern that fits your skill:

Pattern	Best For	Structure
Workflow-Based	Sequential procedures	Step-by-step instructions
Task-Based	Multiple operations	Collection of tasks
Reference/Guidelines	Standards, specs	Rules and examples
Capabilities-Based	Interrelated features	Feature descriptions

Naming Conventions

• Use kebab-case for skill names: release-notes-generator
• Use descriptive names that indicate purpose
• Keep names concise but meaningful

Bundled Resources

scripts/

Executable code for deterministic, repeatable tasks:

• init_skill.py - Initialize new skill structure
• package_skill.py - Package skill for distribution

references/

Documentation loaded contextually:

• API documentation
• Style guides
• Domain knowledge

assets/

Templates and resources (not auto-loaded):

• Output templates
• Boilerplate code
• Images and fonts

Example: Creating a Release Notes Skill

User: "Create a skill for generating release notes with 3 output formats: CHANGELOG.md, PR body, and Slack message"

Steps:

1. Initialize structure: init_skill.py release-notes-generator --path ~/.claude/skills/
2. Add templates to assets/:
   • changelog-template.md
   • pr-release-template.md
   • slack-template.md
3. Add transformation rules to references/:
   • tech-to-product-mappings.md
4. Complete SKILL.md with usage instructions
5. Package: package_skill.py ~/.claude/skills/release-notes-generator

Tips

• Keep SKILL.md under 5000 words for efficient context usage
• Use references/ for domain knowledge that doesn't change often
• Put templates in assets/ so they're not auto-loaded
• Test your skill with real use cases before packaging
• Include concrete examples in your SKILL.md

Related Use Cases

• Creating project-specific automation skills
• Building team-shared development workflows
• Packaging reusable Claude capabilities