anthropics/skills

This repository is Anthropic's implementation and showcase of Agent Skills for Claude: folders of instructions, scripts and resources that Claude loads dynamically when a task calls for them. It suits people who want to see working skill patterns, reuse document skills, or build their own skills against the Agent Skills standard.

What a skill is and how it works

A skill is a folder whose SKILL.md contains YAML frontmatter with a name and a description, followed by the instructions, examples and guidelines Claude should follow. That compact format is the mechanism: the description tells Claude when the skill applies, and the body tells it how to execute the task repeatably. The repository includes a template and the Agent Skills specification so you can create or validate your own skills rather than only copying examples specification and template.

Ways to use it

There are three documented routes, each with its own prerequisites:

• Claude Code: register the repository as a plugin marketplace, then install either document-skills or example-skills. Skills are invoked by mentioning them in a request, for example asking for the PDF skill to extract form fields from a file Claude Code instructions.
• Claude.ai: the example skills are already available to paid plans; custom skills can be uploaded following Anthropic's usage guide using skills in Claude.
• Claude API: pre-built skills can be used and custom skills uploaded through the Skills API API guide.

What is actually included

The skills directory is grouped into creative and design, development and technical, enterprise and communication, and document skills skill sets. The document creation and editing skills for DOCX, PDF, PPTX and XLSX are the same implementations Anthropic says power Claude's file-creation capabilities, shared as reference material for more complex, production-used skills document skills.

Licensing and reliability caveats

Licensing is not uniform. Many skills are Apache 2.0, but the DOCX, PDF, PPTX and XLSX folders are described as source-available rather than open source. The repository itself declares no license, so check the folder you intend to use rather than treating the collection as a single licensed package.

The README explicitly frames these skills as demonstration and educational material: Claude's actual behavior may differ from what the skills show, and users are told to test skills thoroughly in their own environment before relying on them for critical tasks repository README. That guidance matters most for document-editing and enterprise workflows, where a wrong result affects real files rather than a sandbox example.