Claude Code Skills: Build Custom AI Workflows
Manas Takalpati
Founder, Blue Orchid
Skills turn Claude Code from a generic AI agent into your personalized development assistant. They're reusable workflows triggered by slash commands - type /review and Claude runs your custom code review checklist. Type /deploy and it follows your deployment process.
What Are Skills?
Skills are markdown files that define specific AI behaviors. They live in .claude/commands/ (project-level) or ~/.claude/commands/ (global). Each file becomes a slash command.
# .claude/commands/review.md
Review the code changes on this branch. Check for:
1. Security vulnerabilities
2. Missing error handling
3. Pattern inconsistencies
4. Missing tests
Be thorough but practical.
Now /review triggers this exact workflow.
Skill Plugins
Beyond simple command files, Claude Code supports skill plugins - structured packages with SKILL.md files that provide rich workflows, triggers, and multi-step processes.
Popular skill plugins:
- Superpowers - TDD, systematic debugging, verification workflows
- Compound Engineering - Plan → Work → Review → Compound development cycle
- Ralph Loop - Autonomous iteration loops
Building Your Own Skills
Start simple. Create a markdown file in .claude/commands/ describing the workflow you repeat most often.
Add specificity. Include exact steps, file patterns to check, and expected output formats.
Test and iterate. Run the skill, check results, refine the instructions.
Skills I Use Daily
/review- Code review checklist/test- Generate tests for current changes/commit- Structured commit with conventional messages/debug- Systematic debugging workflow
For the complete Claude Code configuration including skills, see System Prompt Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
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