Introduction to Agent Skills

Overview

Learn how to build, configure, and share Skills in Claude Code — reusable markdown instructions that Claude automatically applies to tasks at the right time. An Introduction to Agent Skills Agent skills are reusable instruction files that teach Claude Code how to handle specific tasks — automatically, consistently, and without repeating yourself.

In this course, you'll learn how to create, configure, share, and troubleshoot skills so Claude Code works the way you and your team need it to. No prior experience with Claude Code or AI coding agents is required.

Start building skills that keep your AI assistant aligned with your standards from the very first conversation. Create and Configure Skills From Scratch A well-crafted skill can standardize everything from PR reviews to documentation templates across your entire workflow.

The first half of this course walks you through building your first SKILL.md file, writing descriptions that reliably trigger on the right requests, restricting tool access with allowed-tools, and organizing complex skills using progressive disclosure and multi-file structures to keep your context window efficient. Share Skills and Troubleshoot Issues You'll learn how to share skills with your team by committing them to repositories, distribute them broadly through plugins, and deploy them organization-wide using enterprise managed settings.

You'll also wire skills into custom subagents for isolated, expert task delegation. Finally, you'll work through a practical troubleshooting guide covering triggering failures, priority conflicts, and runtime errors — giving you a checklist you can reference anytime.

By the time you complete this course, you'll have the knowledge to build a full skills-based workflow that keeps Claude Code consistent, context-efficient, and aligned with your team's standards across every project.

Syllabus

• Creating Your First Skill
Stop re-explaining yourself to Claude. Learn how skills work, create your first SKILL.md from scratch, and watch Claude
• Skills Configuration & Claude Code Features
Go beyond the basics: restrict what Claude can do when a skill is active, keep large skills lean with progressive disclosure, and learn when to reach for a skill versus a CLAUDE.md file, a subagent, or a hook.
• Sharing & Troubleshooting Skills
Skills are most powerful when shared. Distribute them through Git, plugins, or enterprise settings, wire them into custom subagents, and quickly diagnose the two failure modes every skill builder runs into: the skill that never loads and the skill that never triggers.

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Taught by

Anthropic Academy

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Subjects

Artificial Intelligence