How to Create a Skill in Claude: Write Your First SKILL.md

Searching 'how to create a skill claude' returns deep theory documents when first-timers just want three answers: which folder to create, which file to write, where to put it. The minimum viable Claude skill is a single SKILL.md - under a hundred lines and it runs.

Community · newcomer

Writing prompts is not writing skills. The SKILL.md description field decides when your agent loads the skill - write it vaguely and it never triggers. The body needs progressive disclosure; cramming hundreds of lines in is the same as writing nothing. Every first-time skill author hits both traps.

X · agent skill author

Turning team SOPs into agent skills is one of the most practical AI plays this year: write once, every agent that installs it follows the same playbook. The hard part isn't writing - it's going from zero to 'triggers reliably, output stays stable'.

Community · team efficiency practitioner

Lazy path · recommended

Install deep-skill-finder once — let your Agent find Skills for you

Whatever "creating your first Claude skill" task you have, MEYO already has the matching Skills. You don't need to hunt one by one — install deep-skill-finder and your Agent will auto-search MEYO's 50,000+ Skill library on every task, recommending the best match. You just say what you want to do — matching Skills is the Agent's job.

Copy → paste into Claude Code / Codex / Cursor / WorkBuddy / CatPaw · Agent installs automatically:

Please install the deep-skill-finder skill: download the archive from https://www.meyo.life/skill-finder, extract it into your local skill directory and enable it.

Q: What are the minimum steps to create a Claude skill?

A: Three: create a kebab-case skill directory; write a SKILL.md inside it (frontmatter with name and description, plus a body); drop the directory into your agent's skills path. For more rigor, follow skill-creation-walkthrough's six-phase workflow: decide whether to build at all, define triggers, write the description, structure the body, test and iterate.

Q: What is the structure of a SKILL.md?

A: Two parts: YAML frontmatter (name, description - the description determines when it triggers, so state what it is and when to use it) and a Markdown body organized by progressive disclosure: core workflow in the body, details in references/, deterministic actions as scripts/. document-skills generates files in exactly this structure; skills-best-practices explains every field per Anthropic's official guidelines.

Q: How do I write a description that actually triggers?

A: Two-part formula: what it is + when to use it, with high-frequency trigger words included. Bad: 'a powerful data analysis skill'. Good: 'use when the user asks to analyze Excel/CSV data and produce a conclusion report'. Check your draft against skill-writing-guide's three-tier information layering and trigger optimization methods.

Q: How long should the body be?

A: Official guidance: under 500 lines. Core workflow in the body, reference material split into references/ at one level of depth, deterministic actions written as scripts instead of long prompts. skill-construction grades complexity (Level 1 SKILL.md only; Level 3 adds 4-8 resources) to decide how much to split.

Q: Is there a coach that walks me through from zero?

A: Yes. skill-creator-optimized-pro ships a beginner mode (Phase 0-5 plus a six-question intake) with validate / score / pack scripts for quality checks; skillcreator applies six design principles plus Loop Thinking boundary design for teams building a complete skill package in one pass.

Q: How do I know if my skill is any good?

A: Self-check against effective-agent-skills' design patterns and anti-pattern lists, then run real tasks to measure trigger rate and output stability; iterate on description and information layering where it falls short. Deep Skill Finder helps too: say 'I need a skill that teaches me to write skills' and it returns the real skills above with live download counts.