How to Add Skills to Claude Code: Install, Use & Verify (2026)

Learning how to add skills to Claude Code takes about two minutes, and it is the single highest-leverage way to make Claude work the way you do. A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file of instructions Claude follows; once it is in the right place, Claude either loads it automatically when your request matches or runs it on command. This Claude Code skills tutorial covers the whole loop — where to find skills, the three ways to add them, how to use them, how to confirm they work, and how to fix the ones that do not.

If you are brand new to the concept, our guide to Claude Code skills explains what they are and how they work under the hood. Otherwise, let's install one.

Key Takeaways

If you remember nothing else:

• Add a skill three ways: install a plugin that bundles it, drop a SKILL.md folder into ~/.claude/skills/ (personal) or .claude/skills/ (project), or run npx skills add for repos that support it
• Personal skills (~/.claude/skills/) work in every project; project skills (.claude/skills/) travel with the repo
• Use a skill automatically (Claude matches your request to its description) or directly (/skill-name)
• Plugin skills are namespaced: /plugin-name:skill-name
• If a skill will not trigger, the fix is almost always a sharper description
• Run /reload-plugins after adding or editing a skill

Table of Contents

1. Where to Find Skills
2. How to Add Skills to Claude Code
3. How to Use Skills in Claude Code
4. How to Verify a Skill Is Working
5. Troubleshooting
6. Conclusion

Where to Find Skills

Before you add a skill, you need one to add. There are three good sources:

• Anthropic's official set — first-party skills (document creation, web-app testing, front-end design, and more) published in the anthropics/skills repository and the official plugin marketplace.
• The community "awesome" lists — curated directories like ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills that index hundreds of standalone skills by category.
• Your own — any repeated prompt or checklist can become a skill (covered in our Claude Code skills guide).

For a tested shortlist of what is actually worth installing, see our roundup of the best Claude Code skills. Once you have picked one, here is how to add it.

How to Add Skills to Claude Code

There are three ways to install Claude Code skills, depending on how the skill is distributed. There is no single Claude Code add-skills command — you pick the method that fits the source. All three are quick.

Method 1 — Install a plugin that bundles the skill

Most shared skills ship inside a plugin. If the skill is in Anthropic's official marketplace, it is registered automatically, so one command installs it:

/plugin install skill-creator@claude-plugins-official

For a plugin from any other marketplace, add the marketplace first, then install:

/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers-marketplace
/plugin install superpowers@superpowers-marketplace

Installing a plugin can add several skills at once and keeps them updatable with a single command — it is the easiest path, and the one to prefer for skills built by other people. The /plugin manager (run /plugin on its own) lists everything you have installed and lets you enable, disable, or update it, and the official marketplace is registered automatically the first time you launch Claude Code, so you can install from it with no setup. Our best Claude Code plugins roundup lists the ones worth starting with.

Method 2 — Add a standalone skill folder

A skill is just a folder with a SKILL.md file, so you can add one by hand. Where you put it decides its scope:

~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md      # personal — available in every project
.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md        # project — travels with the repo (commit it)

To install a standalone skill from GitHub, clone or download the repo and copy its skill folder into one of those locations. Here is where each scope lives and who can use it:

A minimal skill is a single SKILL.md with a description and a few instructions — no build step required. It looks like this:

---
name: commit-message
description: Use when writing a git commit message for staged changes
---

Write a concise, conventional commit message for the staged diff.
Use the imperative mood and keep the subject line under 50 characters.

The description is the most important line — it is what Claude matches your request against. For more annotated, real-world walkthroughs, see our Claude Code skills examples.

Method 3 — Use the community installer

Some skill repositories support the skills CLI, which copies the skill into place for you:

npx skills add <owner>/<repo>

This is the fastest route when a repo documents it (the official anthropics/skills and several popular collections do). It is optional convenience — under the hood it is doing the same folder copy as Method 2.

How to Use Skills in Claude Code

Once a skill is added, knowing how to use Claude Code skills comes down to two modes — automatic and direct.

Automatically. This is the default and the whole point of skills. At startup Claude reads the name and description of every installed skill — and only those, which is why a hundred installed skills cost almost no context. When your request matches a description, Claude loads the full SKILL.md and follows it, no command needed. Ask "help me write a commit message" and a commit-message skill whose description says "use when writing a git commit message" fires on its own. This is why the description matters so much: it is the trigger, so write it to name the exact situation rather than the general topic.

Directly. To run a specific skill on demand, type a forward slash and its name:

/commit-message

Plugin skills are namespaced to avoid collisions, so a review skill inside a plugin called my-tools is invoked as /my-tools:review, never a bare /review. Type / on its own to see every skill command available in your session, including the namespaced ones. Direct invocation is your reliable fallback whenever you want a particular skill to run regardless of automatic matching. For a deeper tour of invocation and progressive disclosure, see the Claude Code skills guide, and if you are still deciding between skills, plugins, subagents, and MCP, the skills vs. plugins vs. agents vs. MCP breakdown settles it.

How to Verify a Skill Is Working

After adding a skill, confirm Claude actually sees it:

1. Reload. Run /reload-plugins to pick up a newly added or edited skill without restarting.
2. Check it is registered. Open the /plugin manager to see enabled plugins and their skills, or type / to confirm the skill's slash command appears.
3. Trigger it. Invoke it directly with /skill-name, or give Claude a task that matches its description and watch that it loads the skill rather than improvising. If Claude follows the skill's steps, it is working.

Troubleshooting

A few issues account for almost every "my skill isn't working":

• It never triggers automatically. The description is too vague. Claude matches your request against it, so rewrite it to name the exact situation — "use when converting CSV to JSON" beats "handles data." Reload and test again.
• "Skill/plugin not found" on install. Your marketplace catalog is stale. Run /plugin marketplace update <name> and retry, and double-check the name@marketplace spelling.
• A standalone skill isn't picked up. Check the path and structure: it must be ~/.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md or .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md — the SKILL.md file sits inside a folder named for the skill. Then run /reload-plugins.
• The wrong version runs. Names collide across scopes, and precedence is enterprise → personal → project. If a personal skill is shadowing a project one, rename one of them.
• The slash command has a prefix you didn't expect. That is namespacing — plugin skills are always /plugin-name:skill-name.
• Edits to a skill aren't reflected. Claude reads skills at startup, so after editing a SKILL.md run /reload-plugins (or restart the session) to pick up the change.

Conclusion

Adding a skill to Claude Code is a two-minute job: install a plugin, drop a SKILL.md folder into ~/.claude/skills/ or .claude/skills/, or run npx skills add. Using one is just as simple — describe your task and let Claude match it, or invoke it directly with a slash command. When something misbehaves, the fix is almost always a sharper description and a quick /reload-plugins.

From here, browse the best Claude Code skills to fill out your setup, and the Claude Code skills guide to start writing your own.

Related Resources

• Claude Code Skills: The Complete Guide
• Best Claude Code Skills (2026): Tested & Ranked
• Claude Code Plugins: The Complete Guide
• Best Claude Code Plugins (2026): Tested & Ranked
• Claude Code Skills vs. Plugins vs. Agents vs. MCP