How to install agent skills in Claude

A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file that teaches Claude a job. Install it once and Claude loads it whenever a request matches. This guide covers Claude Code and the Claude app on the web and the desktop.

Claude Code or the Claude app?

The two install skills differently, so start with the one you use:

• Claude Code runs in your terminal, the Claude desktop app or your editor. A skill is a folder on your computer, so one command installs it. Jump to Claude Code.
• The Claude app is claude.ai and the Claude desktop app. You upload a skill as a ZIP file. It works on the Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. Jump to the Claude app.

Skills you turn on in your claude.ai account also load in Claude Code when you sign in to it with the same account. That sync runs one way only: Claude Code never uploads its own skills to your account.

Install a skill in Claude Code

Every skill page in the collection has these commands filled in for that skill. The examples below install Anthropic's Frontend Design.

With the skills CLI (quickest)

The open-source skills CLI downloads a skill from GitHub and puts it in the right folder. You need Node.js 22.20 or later. Run this in your terminal:

npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill frontend-design -a claude-code -g Copy Copied

-g installs it for every project. Leave it out to install the skill into the current project only, in .claude/skills/, where you can commit it for your team.

As a plugin

Some authors ship their skills as a Claude Code plugin. When one does, the Claude Code steps on its skill page start with “As a plugin”. Inside Claude Code, add the author's marketplace and install the plugin:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills Copy Copied /plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills Copy Copied

A plugin can hold several skills. Their names get the plugin's name in front, so you call one as /plugin-name:skill-name.

By hand

Download the skill's folder from GitHub and copy it into your skills folder. The folder name stays the skill's name and SKILL.md sits directly inside it:

~/.claude/skills/frontend-design/SKILL.md

On Windows, ~ is your user folder, for example C:\Users\you\.claude\skills\. Claude Code picks up the new skill in a running session; you do not need to restart it.

Where Claude Code looks for skills

Scope	Folder	Who gets it
Personal	~/.claude/skills/<name>/	You, in every project
Project	.claude/skills/<name>/	Everyone who works in the repository, once committed
Plugin	Inside the installed plugin	Whoever installed the plugin
Enterprise	Set by your organization's admin	Everyone in the organization

When two skills have the same name, enterprise beats personal and personal beats project. Plugin skills never clash, because their names carry the plugin's name.

Use a skill in Claude Code

• Let Claude pick it. Claude reads each skill's description at the start of a session and loads the full skill when your request matches. Ask for a landing page and a design skill loads.
• Call it by name. Start your message with a slash and the skill's name, for example /frontend-design. It has to be at the start: a skill named in the middle of a sentence does not run.
• See what you have. Type /skills for the list of installed skills, or ask Claude “What skills are available?”.

Update, turn off or remove a skill

Turn one off without deleting it in the /skills menu: highlight the skill, press Space to change its state, then Esc to save.

Update skills installed with the skills CLI:

npx skills update -g Copy Copied

Remove one the same way, by its name:

npx skills remove --global frontend-design Copy Copied

A skill you copied by hand is removed by deleting its folder from ~/.claude/skills/ or .claude/skills/. A plugin comes out with /plugin uninstall <plugin>@<marketplace>. Edits to a SKILL.md take effect in the running session.

Install a skill in the Claude app

Claude on the web and the desktop app run skills in their code-execution sandbox, so that has to be on first. Then you upload the skill as a ZIP.

1. Turn on code execution. Open Settings → Capabilities and turn on “Code execution and file creation”. On a Team or Enterprise plan an owner does this for everyone instead: Organization settings → Plugins & skills → Policy, with both “Cloud code execution and file creation” and “Skills” on.
2. Download the skill. On the skill's GitHub page, choose Code → Download ZIP and unzip it.
3. Zip the skill's own folder. Find the folder that holds SKILL.md and zip that folder on its own, not the whole repository. Its name has to match the skill's name, for example frontend-design.
4. Upload it. In Claude, open Customize → Skills, click +, choose “Create skill”, then “Upload a skill”, and pick your ZIP.

Claude then uses the skill when it is relevant. You can also ask for it by name: “Use the Frontend Design skill to…”. Claude's built-in skills, which create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, need no install: they work as soon as code execution is on.

Turn off or delete a skill in the app

Every skill in Customize → Skills has a switch beside it that turns it on or off. To delete one, turn it off, click the … button next to the switch, choose Delete and confirm. On Team and Enterprise plans, skills your organization provides show a team badge, and an owner can turn off skills that members upload themselves.

When a skill does not work

In Claude Code

• Claude never uses it. Check that it is in /skills, then call it directly with /skill-name. If that works, the skill is installed and its description simply does not match how you ask. Use the words the description uses, or call it by name.
• It is missing from the list. The folder has to sit directly in a skills folder, as skills/<name>/SKILL.md, not one level deeper. The --- block at the top of SKILL.md must start on the very first line. Start Claude Code with claude --debug to see why a skill did not load.
• It runs when you do not want it. Turn it off in /skills, or remove it.
• It works in the terminal but not in a cloud session. Sessions in the cloud do not read ~/.claude/skills/. Upload the skill to your claude.ai account instead.

In the Claude app

The upload is refused when:

• the ZIP is too large: zip the skill's folder only, not the whole repository;
• the folder's name does not match the skill's name;
• there is no SKILL.md in the folder;
• the skill's name or description has characters the app does not accept.

If skills are missing from Customize altogether, code execution is off, or on a Team or Enterprise plan your owner has not turned skills on.

Before you install any skill

A skill is instructions Claude follows, and some include scripts it can run. Read a third-party skill's SKILL.md before you install it, the way you would read code before running it. Every skill page here links to its source.