Today

Claude Skills are reusable instructions that extend Claude's capabilities for specific tasks. They work with Claude Code to help Claude understand your workflows, coding standards, and preferences. Think of them as specialized prompts that make Claude better at particular tasks.

For Claude Code, add skills to ~/.claude/skills/ (personal) or .claude/skills/ (project-specific). For OpenAI Codex CLI, add to ~/.codex/skills/. Both tools use the same SKILL.md format. Clone the skill's GitHub repository and copy the skill folder to your chosen directory. The AI automatically discovers and loads skills from these locations.

Yes! All skills in our directory are free to use. You just need Claude Code installed. Skills are open source and contributed by the community.

Skills provide persistent instructions and context, while MCP (Model Context Protocol) provides external tool integrations. Skills tell Claude "how" to do things (coding patterns, workflows, preferences), while MCP gives Claude "tools" to do things (database access, API calls, file operations). They work great together!

Create a SKILL.md file with instructions for Claude or Codex, then publish it to GitHub. Your skill can include coding standards, workflow instructions, or specialized knowledge. Place your skill in ~/.claude/skills/ or .claude/skills/ to test it locally. Check out our guide on creating skills for detailed steps.