All 19 Anthropic Claude Skills, Explained

Anthropic gives away its own collection of Claude Skills for free at github.com/anthropics/skills. There are nineteen. You can read all of them, and they are written in plain text rather than code.

Here is what each one is for.

Working with files

These are the ones most people find useful straight away, because they do real work on real files rather than just giving advice.

• docx — Word documents. Create them, read them, edit them, add images and comments.
• xlsx — spreadsheets. Build them, fix broken ones, add formulas and charts.
• pptx — slideshows. Make a deck, or pull the text out of one someone sent you.
• pdf — PDFs. Pull out text and tables, join files, split them, fill in forms, and read scanned pages.
• doc-coauthoring — writing a long document together, step by step, instead of getting a finished draft dumped on you.

Design and websites

• frontend-design — stops web pages looking like every other web page. Colour, fonts, spacing.
• theme-factory — makes everything you create match everything else. Ten ready-made looks included.
• canvas-design — posters, covers and graphics. Told to make original work rather than copy real artists.
• algorithmic-art — patterns and shapes made with code. Good for backgrounds.
• web-artifacts-builder — for pages that actually do something, not just show something.
• brand-guidelines — careful, this one holds Anthropic’s colours and fonts. Copy it and swap in yours.

Building and checking

• webapp-testing — lets Claude open a real browser and click around your site to see whether it works. This is the one that changes how building feels.
• mcp-builder — for connecting Claude to an outside service, so it can reach information it otherwise cannot see.
• skill-creator — a skill for making skills. It sets everything up and checks yours actually works.
• claude-api — reference notes for developers building their own software on top of Claude.

Writing and communicating

• internal-comms — announcements and updates inside a company. Another one to copy and change.
• slack-gif-creator — animated GIFs sized correctly for Slack.
• academy-guide — points you at Anthropic’s own tutorials when you ask how to do something.
• discernment-nudge — the odd one out, and quite clever. After Claude gives you an answer, it adds a couple of questions to help you check that answer instead of just believing it.

Which should you get first?

If you deal with documents, start with the file ones. They pay off immediately, because they actually open and change your files.

If you build websites, start with webapp-testing. Letting Claude see its own work in a browser changes more than anything else here.

And skill-creator is the one that makes the rest optional, because the most useful skills are usually the ones holding your own rules rather than someone else’s.

Two are meant to be copied and changed rather than used as they come: brand-guidelines and internal-comms. Both contain Anthropic’s own house style, which is a useful shape and the wrong content for you.