Using Skills in Claude

Skills extend Claude's capabilities by giving it access to specialized knowledge and workflows. This guide shows you how to enable, discover, and use Skills in Claude.

Prerequisites

For Enterprise plans:

• Owners must first enable both Code execution and file creation and Skills in Admin settings > Capabilities.
• Once enabled, individual members can toggle on example skills and upload their own in Settings > Capabilities.

For Team plans:

• Feature preview is enabled by default at the organization level.
• Individual members can toggle on example skills and upload their own in Settings > Capabilities.

For Max and Pro plans:

• Enable example skills and upload your own in Settings > Capabilities.

How to enable Skills

1. Navigate to Settings > Capabilities.
2. Ensure that Code execution and file creation is enabled.
3. Scroll to the Skills section.
4. Toggle individual skills on or off as needed.
5. To add custom skills, click "Upload skill" and upload a ZIP file containing your skill folder.

Using Anthropic Skills

Anthropic provides several built-in skills available to all users, including:

• Enhanced Excel spreadsheet creation and manipulation
• Professional Word document creation
• PowerPoint presentation generation
• PDF creation and processing

With Code execution and file creation on, Claude will automatically use these tools when relevant. You don't need to explicitly invoke them—Claude determines when each skill is needed based on your request.

Example: If you ask Claude to "Create a PowerPoint presentation about Q3 results," Claude will automatically use the PowerPoint skill if the feature preview is enabled.

Adding and using custom skills

You can also create and upload your own skills to teach Claude your specific workflows:

1. Create a skill following the skill structure (see Creating Custom Skills for instructions).
2. Package your skill folder as a ZIP file.
3. Navigate to Settings > Capabilities.
4. In the Skills section, click "Upload skill".
5. Upload your ZIP file.
6. Your skill will appear in your Skills list and can be toggled on or off.

How Claude uses Skills

Claude automatically identifies and loads relevant skills based on your task. Refer to What are Skills? to learn how this works.

Managing your Skills

Viewing your Skills

All your skills are listed in Settings > Capabilities under the Skills section. You can see:

• Anthropic skills (created, tested, and maintained by Anthropic)
• Custom skills you've uploaded
• When each skill was enabled or uploaded
• A brief description of what each skill does

Enabling and disabling your Skills

Toggle any skill on or off using the switch next to it. Disabled skills won't be available to Claude.

Removing custom Skills

1. Navigate to Settings > Capabilities.
2. Find the skill in your Skills list.
3. Click the delete or remove option.
4. Confirm deletion.

Privacy and security details

Custom skills uploaded to Claude can't currently be shared with other users; each individual will need to upload it manually. Skills in Claude and the API operate in Claude's secure sandboxed environment with no data persistence between sessions.

Note: Skills may include or install third-party packages and software. See details for Claude.ai container environments and API containers.

Primary risks of using Skills

• Prompt injection: Allows Claude to be manipulated to execute unintended actions.
• Data exfiltration: Caused by malicious package code or prompt-injected data leaks.

Mitigation:

• Only install skills from trusted sources.
• Audit skills from less-trusted sources before use, paying attention to files, code dependencies, and bundled resources.

Troubleshooting

Skills section not visible

Ensure code execution is enabled in Settings > Capabilities. Skills require this environment to function.

Claude isn't using a Skill

• Verify the Skill is toggled on in Settings > Capabilities.
• Check the Skill's description field for clear usage instructions.
• Make sure Skill instructions are well-structured.
• Try being more explicit in your request (e.g., "Use my brand guidelines skill to create a presentation").

Upload errors

Common upload failure reasons:

• ZIP file exceeds size limits
• Skill folder name doesn't match the skill name
• Missing required Skill.md file
• Invalid characters in skill name or description

Skills greyed out

• Code execution or Skills may be disabled at the org/individual level.
• Check with your organization's Owner or enable code execution in your settings.

Best Practices

Start Simple

Begin with Anthropic's pre-built Skills to learn how they work.

Be Specific

Write clear descriptions for custom skills. Specificity tells Claude when to invoke your skill.

Test Your Skills

Test uploads with different prompts to confirm expected behavior.

Organize by Purpose

Create separate skills for different purposes rather than one that does everything.

Learn more

Refer to Teach Claude your way of working using Skills for info and videos.

---

Related Articles:

• Create and edit files with Claude
• What are Skills?
• How to create custom Skills
• How to create a skill with Claude through conversation
• How to use the single-cell-rna-qc skill with Claude