Skill Creator Skill | Agent Skills

Skill Creator

Creates new skills in the project skills/ directory (not .claude/skills/).

Target directory: <project-root>/skills/

Skill Structure

Each skill lives in its own directory under the project skills/ folder:

<project-root>/skills/<skill-name>/
├── SKILL.md          # Required: skill definition with YAML frontmatter
├── scripts/          # Optional: executable scripts
│   ├── setup.sh      # Optional: one-time setup
│   └── main.py       # Main script (or .sh, .js, etc.)
├── refs/             # Optional: reference documentation
├── pyproject.toml    # Optional: Python dependencies (use uv)
└── package.json      # Optional: Node.js dependencies

SKILL.md Format

---
name: skill-name
description: Brief description of what this skill does AND when to use it. Include trigger words like file types, actions, or use cases.
allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob  # Optional: restrict available tools
---

# Skill Name

Brief overview of the skill.

## Requirements

List external dependencies (e.g., uv, node, specific tools).

## Setup

Instructions to run before first use.

## Usage

How to invoke the skill's functionality.

## Examples

Concrete usage examples.

Naming Rules

Max 64 characters
Lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens only
Cannot contain "anthropic" or "claude"

Description Best Practices

The description determines when Claude triggers the skill. Include:

What it does: "Converts web pages to markdown"
When to use it: "Use when user wants to crawl a webpage, extract content..."
Trigger words: File types (.pdf, .xlsx), actions (crawl, convert, analyze)

Bad: description: Helps with documents Good: description: Extract text from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents. Use when working with PDFs or when user mentions forms, document extraction.

Script Patterns

Python with uv (recommended)

# pyproject.toml
[project]
name = "skill-name"
version = "0.1.0"
requires-python = ">=3.10"
dependencies = ["your-deps"]

# scripts/setup.sh
#!/bin/bash
set -e
SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
cd "$(dirname "$SCRIPT_DIR")"
uv sync
# Additional setup...

# Run scripts with:
cd skills/<skill-name> && uv run python scripts/main.py

Shell scripts

# scripts/main.sh
#!/bin/bash
set -e
# Your logic here

Node.js

// package.json
{
  "name": "skill-name",
  "type": "module",
  "dependencies": {}
}

Creating a New Skill

Ask user for:
- Skill name (lowercase, hyphens)
- Purpose and functionality
- Required dependencies
- Trigger scenarios
Create directory structure in the project skills folder:
```
mkdir -p <project-root>/skills/<name>/scripts
```
Important: Always use the project's skills/ directory, NOT .claude/skills/.
Write SKILL.md with proper frontmatter
Add scripts if needed
Add setup.sh if dependencies require installation
Test the skill works

Progressive Disclosure

Keep SKILL.md focused on quick-start workflow. Move detailed reference docs to separate files:

refs/
├── API.md
├── CONFIG.md
└── TROUBLESHOOTING.md

Reference them from SKILL.md: See [API reference](refs/API.md) for details.

Agent Skills: Skill Creator

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files