Skill Creator

• Building a new skill from scratch — You have a domain, workflow, or tool integration you want to package as a reusable skill and need guidance on structure, content, and best practices.
• Improving an existing skill — You have a skill that isn't triggering reliably, is bloating the context window, or lacks useful bundled resources and want a principled review.
• Designing skill architecture — You're unsure how to split content between SKILL.md, scripts/, references/, and assets/, and want a framework for making those decisions.
• Packaging and distributing a skill — You're ready to validate and bundle a skill directory into a .skill file for sharing.

• You just want to use an existing skill — This skill is specifically for creating skills, not for using them in domain tasks.
• Your task is a one-off — If you only need Claude to perform a specialized task once and don't intend to reuse it, creating a full skill package is overkill.

Guides Claude through a repeatable process: understand the skill with concrete examples, plan reusable contents, initialize the directory, edit SKILL.md and resources, package the skill, and iterate. Each step has clear entry/exit criteria so nothing is skipped without good reason.

Skills use a three-level loading system — metadata (~100 words, always in context), SKILL.md body (loaded on trigger, kept under 500 lines), and bundled resources (loaded only when needed). This skill teaches you to apply this principle so your skills stay lean and context-efficient.

Explains when to give Claude high freedom (open text instructions), medium freedom (pseudocode with parameters), or low freedom (specific scripts with minimal variation). Matching specificity to task fragility is central to writing effective skills.

Covers the three resource types — scripts/ for deterministic executable code, references/ for documentation loaded on demand, and assets/ for output files like templates and images. Provides concrete examples and guidance on when each type is appropriate.

Uses init_skill.py to scaffold a new skill directory with proper frontmatter, placeholder instructions, and example resource folders. Uses package_skill.py to validate structure, check description quality, and produce a distributable .skill zip file.

The description field is the primary trigger mechanism — it must clearly state what the skill does and when to use it. This skill provides explicit guidance and examples for writing descriptions that reliably trigger the right skill at the right time.

A team wants Claude to answer questions using internal database schemas, API specs, and business policies. Using Skill Creator, they plan a references/ directory with domain-split files (finance.md, sales.md), write a focused SKILL.md, and package it for distribution to their team.

A user frequently asks Claude to rotate, extract text from, or fill forms in PDFs. Skill Creator guides them to identify the repeated code, create a scripts/rotate_pdf.py, and write a SKILL.md that tells Claude when and how to use it — eliminating redundant code generation every session.

A developer wants Claude to always start new web apps from a consistent React boilerplate. Skill Creator leads them to store the template in assets/hello-world/ and write instructions that tell Claude to copy and adapt it rather than writing boilerplate from scratch each time.

An existing skill isn't being invoked when expected. Skill Creator's guidance on frontmatter descriptions — specifically putting all "when to use" context in the description field, not the body — helps diagnose and fix the triggering problem.