How to Use Claude Skills: Turn On, Upload and Check Skills in Claude

To use Claude skills, you turn on code execution and open Customize > Skills. Toggle on Anthropic's skills or upload your own as a ZIP. Claude skills are SKILL.md folders that teach Claude a procedure. They run on the web, in the desktop app and in Cowork. Every step below follows Anthropic's own documentation, checked on 2026-10-21. The skills worth adding are ranked separately in our list of the best Claude skills, ranked by verdict.

Skills setup in Claude takes 5 steps:

Other Anthropic pages give different menu paths for step 2. The conversation guide and the Complete Guide PDF say Settings > Capabilities > Skills⁴. The platform overview says Settings > Features⁵. This page follows the "Use skills in Claude" help article, the product's own setup page.

How do you use Claude skills?

To use Claude skills, you turn on code execution and open Customize > Skills. Toggle on Anthropic's skills or upload your own as a ZIP. Claude then loads a skill whenever your request matches its description.

Skills come with the Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and every plan needs code execution turned on¹. Claude reads the short description of each enabled skill first. It loads the full instructions only for the skills your request needs⁶. Anthropic calls this progressive disclosure, and it keeps the context window small⁶. You never name an Anthropic skill to use it, because Claude picks it on its own¹.

The Help Center names 4 types of skill⁶. Anthropic skills cover Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files¹. Custom skills are the ones you or a colleague upload. Organisation skills come from an owner or the org library. Partner skills come from companies such as Notion, Figma and Atlassian⁶.

The concept page explains what a Claude skill changes in a normal chat. Claude skills follow the Agent Skills open standard, so one skill folder works in other agents too.

Can Claude chat and Cowork use skills?

Yes. Skills work in Claude chat and in Cowork. The Help Center says sharing "works in both chat and Cowork"¹. Cowork is the Claude mode that works through multi-step tasks on its own. Cowork sessions load the skills enabled for your Claude account⁷.

How do you turn on skills in Claude?

On Free, Pro and Max plans, you turn on Code execution and file creation in Claude's Settings > Capabilities. Then open Customize > Skills and toggle skills on. On Team and Enterprise, an owner enables Skills first.

Team and Enterprise owners manage both switches on the Policy tab¹. Organisations with HIPAA readiness start with skills turned off¹.

A greyed-out Skills section means code execution is off, for you or for your organisation¹. Turn on code execution first, then return to Customize > Skills. Skills that are on but never fire need a different fix. Our troubleshooting page covers a Claude skill still not running after setup.

How do you upload a skill to Claude?

You upload a skill to Claude as a ZIP of its folder. Open Customize > Skills, click +, choose Create skill, then Upload a skill. The skill appears in your list, ready to toggle on.

1. Build the skill folder with its skill.md file. Our tutorial shows how to create a skill to upload.
2. Package the folder as a ZIP file.
3. Open Customize > Skills.
4. Click the + button, then Create skill.
5. Select Upload a skill.
6. Choose the ZIP file that holds your skill folder.
7. Toggle the skill on in your skills list¹.

Uploaded skills stay private until you share them¹. Admins see each skill's name and sharing status¹. Enterprise organisations with skill scanning turned on check each upload before it runs. Most scans finish in 1 to 2 minutes⁸. Read what you install even after a scan passes.

How do you package a skill as a ZIP?

A skill ZIP holds one skill folder at its root, and the folder name matches the skill's name². Loose files at the ZIP root are the wrong structure².

• Name the folder after the skill.
• Place that folder at the ZIP root.
• Start skill.md with YAML frontmatter that holds name and description².

my-skill.zip
└── my-skill/
    ├── skill.md
    └── resources/

The Help Center caps name at 64 characters and description at 200 characters for uploads². The open standard, the platform overview and the Complete Guide give description 1,024 characters⁵⁹. Keep descriptions under 200 characters for a Claude app upload, and both limits hold. The filename differs too. The Help Center writes skill.md², while the Complete Guide calls for a case-sensitive SKILL.md⁹. Our guide to what goes in the SKILL.md file lists every field.

Why does a skill upload fail?

The Help Center lists 4 upload errors, such as an oversized ZIP and a missing skill.md¹.

A symlink inside a ZIP can break an upload too. The Humanizer skill's desktop ZIP upload was rejected for a symlink. The fix shipped in v2.11.1, per GitHub issue #224 from 2026-08¹⁰.

How do you install Claude skills from GitHub?

You install a Claude skill from GitHub by downloading the repository and zipping the one folder that holds SKILL.md. Upload that ZIP in Customize > Skills. Read its files first, because skills can run code.

1. Download the repository with Code > Download ZIP, or run git clone.
2. Find the folder that contains SKILL.md.
3. Zip that one folder on its own.
4. Upload the ZIP through Customize > Skills, as in the steps above.

This route is derived from Anthropic's packaging rule of one skill folder at the ZIP root². The Complete Guide uses the same clone, zip and upload flow⁹. Anthropic documents one ZIP per skill, so a repository with 20 skills means 20 uploads¹. Anthropic's example skills live in the anthropics/skills repository on GitHub².

Treat a GitHub skill as code from a stranger. The Help Center tells you to review a skill before enabling it¹. It asks you to pay "particular attention to code dependencies and bundled resources like images or scripts"¹. Our checklist shows how to check a GitHub skill before you upload it.

Claude Code, Anthropic's terminal coding agent, takes GitHub skills as folders or plugins instead of ZIP uploads. Read how to install GitHub skills in Claude Code for that route.

Where are Claude skills stored?

Claude skills you add in the app are stored in your Claude account, not in a local folder. Cowork loads those account skills at session start. Claude Code downloads them into ~/.claude/skills/synced/.

Some guides place Cowork or desktop skills in a local folder on your computer. Anthropic's docs say Cowork loads account skills instead and does not read ~/.claude/skills/⁷. The Claude apps on Mac and Windows have no documented local skills folder (checked 2026-10-21). The ~/.claude/ paths belong to Claude Code. Our setup page maps Claude Code skill folders and precedence in full.

Claude Code checks for account skills about every 10 minutes while you work¹. Idle sessions check about every 40 minutes⁷. Sync does not run with an API key sign-in or on Amazon Bedrock⁷. One source disagrees on sync. The platform overview says custom skills "do not sync across surfaces"⁵. The Help Center and the Claude Code docs describe the sync from claude.ai to Claude Code¹⁷.

Where are skills stored in Claude Cowork?

Cowork skills are stored in your Claude account⁷. Interactive and scheduled Cowork sessions load them when each session starts⁷. Manage them from Customize in the desktop sidebar or from the skills settings on claude.ai⁷.

Where can you find the Claude skills directory?

Open Customize > Skills, click +, then choose Browse skills to open the directory⁶. Organisation skills install from the same directory. In Cowork, click Customize, then +, then the Skills tab¹.

How do you run a skill in Claude and check that it worked?

You run a skill in Claude by asking for a task its description covers. Name the skill in your request to force it. Check that it worked by finding the skill's name in Claude's thinking.

The label in the thinking differs between sources. The Academy tutorial shows "Reading [skill]"³. The conversation guide shows "Using [skill name]"⁴. Either label confirms that the skill loaded.

The Claude add-ins for Microsoft 365 apps add a / menu. Type / in the add-in sidebar to pick an enabled skill¹. The Help Center documents no / picker in claude.ai chat (checked 2026-10-21).

Claude matches each request against skill descriptions, so a vague description stays silent. Our explainer shows how Claude decides which skill to load. Skills that stay silent after several prompts need the steps to fix a skill that never triggers.

How do you manage, update and delete Claude skills?

You manage Claude skills in Customize > Skills, where each toggle turns a skill on or off. Delete a custom skill from its three-dot menu. Edit it with Claude beside the chat, or upload a new ZIP.

Every enabled skill adds its description to what Claude reads before it picks one. The Complete Guide warns that results degrade past 20 to 50 enabled skills⁹. Turn off the skills you no longer use.

How do you share Claude skills with your team?

You share Claude skills with your team on Team and Enterprise plans. Open Customize > Skills, click the three-dot menu, and choose Share. Publish to org adds the skill to your organisation's library instead.

1. Open Customize > Skills.
2. Find the skill you created.
3. Click the three-dot menu next to it, then select Share.
4. Choose specific people, or a group on Enterprise.
5. Click Share¹.

Owners turn sharing on under Organization settings > Plugins & skills > Policy¹. One troubleshooting entry in the same article names Organization settings > Skills instead. Shared skills arrive under Shared with you, and recipients turn them on there¹. Recipients use a shared skill, but they cannot edit it¹. Free, Pro and Max users cannot share skills¹.

Anthropic's sources disagree here. The platform overview calls claude.ai skills "Individual user only" with no central admin management⁵. The Complete Guide says admins can deploy skills workspace-wide, shipped December 18, 2025⁹. The Help Center documents all three routes, so this page follows it. Teams that keep skills in a code repository can follow the skills in Claude Code setup guide.

How do you use skills in the Claude desktop app?

You use skills in the Claude desktop app through the same account skills as claude.ai. Turn them on in Customize, and they work in chat and Cowork. The Code tab loads ~/.claude/skills/ for local sessions.

Claude Desktop manages skills, connectors and plugins from Customize in the sidebar¹¹. That setup syncs through your Claude account⁷¹¹. A skill turned on in the desktop app is on at claude.ai.

Record a skill is a desktop-only way to build one. Cowork watches your screen while you do a task once, then writes the skill².

• Plans: Pro, Max and Team, not Free or Enterprise².
• Surface: Cowork in Claude for Mac, not chat and not Windows².
• Length: about 10 minutes per recording².

The desktop app's Code tab runs Claude Code. Its local sessions load skills from ~/.claude/skills/, and you call them with / or + > Slash commands¹¹. SSH sessions read ~/.claude/skills/ on the remote machine¹¹. The VS Code extension is a Claude Code surface too, so it follows the Claude Code setup.

Humanizer is one of 2 skills our verdicts verify inside a Claude app. Its verified surfaces are Claude Desktop after v2.10.2 and Claude Cowork on the web. The skill was invisible to the Claude Desktop plugin loader until v2.10.2, per GitHub issue #202¹³. The full evidence sits in our Humanizer verdict.

Skills are on, uploaded and firing. The next question is which skills are worth adding.

Where can you download Claude skills?

You can download Claude skills from the directory in Customize > Skills or from GitHub repositories such as anthropics/skills. Check a verdict first. Only 2 of the skills we have reviewed are verified inside a Claude app.

Skills to install first in Claude, ranked by verified Claude-app support, then by score:

All 5 verdicts were reviewed on 2026-09-30. Humanizer was reviewed at commit 225a6f3, and the four Anthropic skills at commit 8a1541c. PPTX and XLSX ship as built-in skills in Claude¹. Our verdicts cover the open-source copy in anthropics/skills. A match with the built-in version is not confirmed.

Verified means dated public evidence shows the skill working on that surface. Claimed means the skill lists the surface, but no dated evidence confirms it. Among the skills we have reviewed, PPTX is the only one with Claude.ai verified.

The full ranking covers every Claude skill we've reviewed. Our methodology page explains what verified means in our verdicts. Skill registries list more skills, without verdicts.

Are Claude skills free?

Yes, Claude skills are included on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans at no listed extra price. Code execution must be on. Third-party skills on GitHub cost nothing, but they need vetting.

The Help Center shows no separate price for skills, built-in or uploaded (checked 2026-10-21). The platform overview disagrees on one plan. It lists custom skill uploads for Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise only⁵.

Free skills still need a safety check. Read how to vet a free skill before you upload one from GitHub.

Common questions

Do Claude skills work on mobile?

No support is documented for the Claude mobile apps (checked 2026-10-21). The Help Center documents Customize > Skills for web and desktop only¹.

Can Claude use several skills at once?

Yes. Skills cannot reference each other, but Claude combines several of them on its own².

Do skills need code execution?

Yes. Skills need Code execution and file creation turned on, on every plan¹.

Do skills only work in Claude Code?

No. Skills work in the Claude apps, in Claude Code and in the API¹⁵. The Claude Code setup has its own folders and commands.

Do skills work on Windows?

Yes, in the web and desktop apps. Only Record a skill is limited to Cowork in Claude for Mac².

Are skills still in beta?

Yes, in part: the main Help Center article labels API skills beta¹. The custom skills article labels skills in Claude Code beta too².

Can you add a skill to a Project?

Yes: skills are account-wide, so they already work in any chat, inside Projects too⁶³. Projects hold background knowledge, while skills hold procedures⁶.

What is the difference between a skill and MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) connects Claude to tools and data, while a skill teaches Claude a procedure⁶. Our page on skills vs MCP shows when to use each.

Is there an official PDF guide?

Yes. Anthropic publishes "The Complete Guide to Building Skills for Claude" as a free PDF⁹.

1. Anthropic Help Center, "Use skills in Claude" (accessed 2026-10-21).
2. Anthropic Help Center, "Creating custom skills" (accessed 2026-10-21).
3. Anthropic Academy, "Teach Claude your way of working using skills" (accessed 2026-10-21).
4. Anthropic Help Center, "How to create a skill with Claude through conversation" (accessed 2026-10-21).
5. Claude Platform docs, "Agent Skills" overview (accessed 2026-10-21).
6. Anthropic Help Center, "What are skills?" (accessed 2026-10-21).
7. Claude Code docs, "Skills" (accessed 2026-10-21).
8. Anthropic Help Center, "Get started with skill and plugin scanning" (accessed 2026-10-21).
9. Anthropic, "The Complete Guide to Building Skills for Claude" (PDF) (accessed 2026-10-21).
10. GitHub issue blader/humanizer#224 (2026-08), cited in our Humanizer review.
11. Claude Code docs, "Desktop" (accessed 2026-10-21).
12. Claude Code docs, "The .claude directory" (accessed 2026-10-21).
13. GitHub issue blader/humanizer#202 (2026-08), cited in our Humanizer review.