Claude Skills and how to integrate them into ~/.claude/skills/

If you find yourself repeatedly pasting the same system prompts into Claude Code, you can automate this by creating reusable skills.

Each skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file containing YAML frontmatter and the instructions Claude should follow.

Once created, you can invoke it with /skill-name inside a Claude session.

How it works

• create a folder under ~/.claude/skills/
• add SKILL.md
• set name: and description: in YAML
• use /name in Claude Code

Example: review-pr

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/review-pr
cat > ~/.claude/skills/review-pr/SKILL.md <<'EOF'
---
name: review-pr
description: Reviews the current git diff and summarizes the changes
---
Review the current git diff and summarize:
1. What changed
2. Why it changed
3. Any risks or follow-up work
Keep the answer concise and structured.
EOF

Then type /review-pr in Claude Code.

Best practices

• keep each skill focused on one task
• write a clear YAML description
• make instructions short and structured

Summary

A skill can keep prompts reusable and avoids rewriting the same instructions each time.