Claude Skills go public — package and share Claude's expertise

Anthropic moved Claude Skills from beta to general availability today. Skills are folders of context, scripts, and instructions that teach Claude how to be good at a specific job — generating PowerPoint, filling PDF forms, reading Excel, etc. Now anyone with a Claude.ai account can install them, and the format is open.

Why we picked it

This is the closest thing to a real plugin ecosystem for an AI assistant. Unlike GPT actions (API-bound) or MCP (tool-bound), Skills are just folders — version-controlled, copy-paste-shareable, runnable on any Claude product.

What's included

• Official skills for docx, pptx, xlsx, pdf
• Public registry of community skills
• Skill creator skill (yes, meta) for building your own
• Works in Claude.ai, Claude Code, and the API

Watch out for

• Skills can run code in the sandbox — review before installing untrusted ones
• Skill discovery is still rough; no in-app search yet
• The API requires a specific tool annotation to enable skills; not enabled by default

If you're using Claude regularly for document work, skills change the ROI. Install the official ones first, then poke around the registry.