Introducing Agent Skills | Anthropic Claude

Claude can now use Skills to enhance its ability to perform specific tasks. Skills are folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude loads when needed to carry out specialized work.

Skills have the following key characteristics:

• Composable: Multiple skills are automatically identified and work together to perform complex tasks.
• Portable: Once built, they can be used in the same format across the Claude app, Claude Code, and the API.
• Efficient: Only the minimum information and files needed for a task are loaded, keeping things fast.
• Powerful: They can include executable code beyond simple text generation, enabling more sophisticated tasks.

For Claude app users (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise), Claude automatically invokes relevant skills tailored to the task without any separate manual selection. In particular, the 'skill-creator' skill makes it easy to create complex skill structures through an interactive guide alone.

On the Developer Platform (API), skills can be controlled programmatically through the new /v1/skills endpoint. Skills run in a secure environment built on the Code Execution Tool beta, and can be extended to professional document work such as Excel creation, PowerPoint production, and PDF authoring.