Claude skills: a guide for business teams

What a skill is

Anthropic describes skills as folders of instructions, scripts and resources that Claude loads when they are relevant to a task. Every skill has a file called SKILL.md. It opens with a short header giving the skill a name and a description, followed by the instructions in plain text. A skill can also hold reference documents, templates and small programs that Claude runs when the task needs them.

The description does most of the work. Claude keeps only the name and description of each skill in view, and reads the full instructions when a request matches. Anthropic calls this progressive disclosure. A team can have many skills available without each one taking up room in every conversation, and the detailed material is read only when it is needed.

Anthropic publishes the format as an open standard called Agent Skills, so a skill written for Claude can also work in other tools that adopt the standard.

How skills differ from projects, instructions and connectors

• A project holds background material and instructions that are loaded whenever someone chats inside it. It suits one piece of ongoing work, such as a client matter or a tender.
• A skill holds a procedure, such as how to lay out a board report or check a supplier invoice, and Claude uses it wherever that task comes up.
• Custom instructions apply to all of a person's conversations. A skill applies only when the task is relevant.
• A connector gives Claude access to a system, such as Microsoft 365. A skill tells Claude how to do a task. They work together: the connector finds the documents and the skill says what to do with them.

Where skills work

Anthropic lists skills on every Claude plan: Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. They work in Claude chat, in Claude Code, and through the Claude API, where they are in beta and use the code execution tool. Skills a person has turned on also load in the Claude for Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Outlook add-ins, and in Claude Code when it is signed in with the same Claude account.

Anthropic also supplies ready-made skills, for example for creating Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files, and Claude uses them automatically when a request calls for one.

Skills need Claude's code execution and file creation setting to be on. On Team and Enterprise plans an owner checks this under Organisation settings, Plugins & skills, on the Policy tab. If skills appear greyed out, that setting is the usual reason.

How a team builds its first skill

Simple skills need no programming. Anthropic notes that anyone can write a skill in plain text, and that scripts are optional, for tasks that need exact calculations or file handling. A useful test is whether a new colleague could follow the instructions. If they only make sense to the person who wrote them, Claude will struggle with them too.

• Pick one task the team repeats, with a result everyone recognises: a monthly client update, a first review of a contract against the firm's checklist, a proposal in house style. Anthropic advises that a skill should cover one workflow rather than try to do everything.
• Write down how the person who does it best works now: the steps, the sources, the layout of the result and what they check before it goes out.
• Write the description with care. It should say what the skill does and when to use it, because that is what Claude matches a request against.
• Add the supporting material, such as a template, a style guide or an example of a good finished piece. Keep the main instructions in SKILL.md and put longer reference material in separate files that the instructions point to.
• Upload the folder as a ZIP file under Customise, then Skills, and test it on several real requests before sharing it. Check the output the way the team would check a colleague's work.

How an organisation shares skills on Team and Enterprise

On Team and Enterprise plans there are several ways to share a skill, and the owner decides which are switched on. The settings are under Organisation settings, Plugins & skills.

• Provisioning. An owner uploads or creates a skill in the organisation settings and it appears for everyone, switched on by default. Members can switch a provisioned skill off for themselves but cannot delete it.
• Sharing with colleagues. A member shares a skill they built with named people. Recipients can use it but not edit it, and they receive updates automatically. On Enterprise, members can also share with a group the organisation has set up.
• Publishing to the organisation library. A member submits a skill for everyone to use. The owner sets publishing to Requires review, Open or Off. With review on, an owner approves each skill, and each later version, before anyone else receives it.
• Skills for one group. On Enterprise, an owner can bundle skills into a plugin and assign it to one group, such as the finance team, so only that group sees them.
• Limiting who creates skills. An owner can turn off User-created skills, so members use only the skills the organisation has approved.
• Scanning. Enterprise owners can turn on skill and plugin security scanning, which checks uploaded skills for malicious content before they run.

Which of these controls you have depends on your plan. See Claude Team or Claude Enterprise: which does a business need?

Who looks after a skill

A skill is a written procedure, and like any procedure it goes out of date. A price list changes, a template is replaced, guidance is updated. A skill that nobody owns will keep giving Claude the old version.

On Enterprise, skill sharing is recorded in the audit log and the Compliance API. The record shows who shared a skill and with whom, but not what the skill contains, so the organisation's own list of skills and owners still matters.

• Name an owner for each skill: the person who does the task and can say whether the instructions are still right.
• Keep versions. When the organisation library requires review, each new version is approved before it reaches anyone, and the inventory keeps a version history. Note what changed and why.
• Review each skill on a schedule, and whenever the process, template or rules behind it change.
• Retire duplicates. When two people build skills for the same task, agree on one, remove the other and tell its users. Anthropic's review screen flags possible duplicates for the reviewer.
• Read a skill before turning it on. Anthropic advises installing skills only from trusted sources and reading the files first, including skills shared by a colleague, because a skill can contain scripts and instructions that reach outside the organisation.

A sensible way to start

• Choose two or three tasks the team repeats every week or month.
• Have the person who does each task best write the first version, and a colleague test it on real work.
• Share it with the team as a trial before provisioning or publishing it for everyone. Anthropic suggests owners test a skill on their own account first.
• On Team and Enterprise, choose the publishing setting before people start building, so everyone knows whether skills are reviewed before they spread.
• Keep a short list of skills, their owners and their review dates.

Common questions