Skill Development
Build Well-Structured Claude Code Skills
Authoring effective Claude Code skills requires knowing structure, trigger phrasing, and progressive disclosure. This skill provides a step-by-step process and best practices to produce lean, discoverable skills that load only when needed.
Install with my Agent
Copy this request to your Agent. It includes the canonical Skill page and manifest.
Review the Skillstore skill "Skill Development" from https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development.md and its manifest at https://skillstore.io/api/skills/anthropics-skill-development/manifest. Verify the artifact. You may proceed after verification, subject to the environment's own policy.Your Agent should still show its plan and request any confirmation required by the security policy.
Agent-readable resources
Use these links when an AI agent, crawler, or script needs clean context instead of reading the full page.
Test it
Using "Skill Development". Help me create a skill for rotating PDFs in my plugin.
Expected outcome:
The skill guides you to first collect concrete usage examples, then plan a reusable rotate script and reference file, create the directory structure, write a lean SKILL.md with a third-person trigger description, and finally validate and test the result.
Using "Skill Development". My skill description is 'Provides hook guidance.' Is that good?
Expected outcome:
That description is too vague. The skill recommends a third-person version with concrete trigger phrases, such as one that names actions like create a hook or add a PreToolUse hook so Claude Code loads the skill at the right time.
Security Audit
SafeThis is Anthropic's official 'Skill Development' documentation skill: a pure Markdown guide (SKILL.md plus one reference file) teaching how to author Claude Code plugin skills. All 105 static findings are false positives. The 'external_commands' hits are Markdown backticks and fenced code blocks used for documentation formatting, the 'filesystem' hits are prose references to sibling skill directories ('../hook-development/'), and the 'blocker' hits are plain English sentences. No executable code, network calls, credential access, or prompt-injection content is present.
Risk Factors
⚙️ External commands (50)
📁 Filesystem access (6)
Share & cite this report
Share the versioned assessment report, neutral badge, embed card, and citations. Skillstore reports evidence without deciding whether this Skill is safe.
Copy report link
https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development/audits/13?utm_source=security_passport&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=versioned_reportMarkdown badge
[](https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development?utm_source=security_passport_badge)HTML badge
<a href="https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development?utm_source=security_passport_badge"><img src="https://skillstore.io/badges/skills/anthropics-skill-development/security.svg" alt="Skillstore security assessment" loading="lazy"></a>Embed card
<iframe src="https://skillstore.io/embed/skills/anthropics-skill-development.html" title="Skillstore Security Assessment" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox" loading="lazy" referrerpolicy="no-referrer" width="420" height="180"></iframe>Academic citations (APA · BibTeX · CFF)
APA citation
anthropics. (2026). Skill Development security audit report (audit version 13) [Author version 0.1.0]. Skillstore. https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development/audits/13BibTeX citation
@techreport{anthropics-anthropics-skill-development-2026,
author = {anthropics},
title = {Skill Development security audit report (audit version 13)},
institution = {Skillstore},
year = {2026},
number = {13},
url = {https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development/audits/13},
note = {Author version 0.1.0}
}CITATION.cff
cff-version: 1.2.0
message: "If you use this Skill, cite its author and this versioned security audit report."
title: "Skill Development security audit report (audit version 13)"
version: "0.1.0"
type: report
authors:
- name: "anthropics"
date-released: "2026-07-18"
url: "https://skillstore.io/skills/anthropics-skill-development/audits/13"
identifiers:
- type: other
value: "skillstore:anthropics-skill-development:audit:13"
description: "Skillstore immutable audit report identifier"
Compare variants
2 installable variantsEach author remains a separate installable skill. The recommended variant is ranked by Skillstore evidence.
Why this variant is first
skill-development
2026-09-09
anthropics-skill-development
2026-09-09
Skillstore Score
Why this score Evidence Confidence: HighWhat You Can Build
Create a first plugin skill
A developer new to Claude Code follows the six-step process to build a working skill with correct structure and metadata.
Improve a skill description
A maintainer rewrites a vague description into a third-person format with specific trigger phrases so the skill loads reliably.
Reorganize skill content
A technical writer applies progressive disclosure to move detailed material out of SKILL.md and into reference files.
Try These Prompts
Help me create a new skill for my Claude Code plugin that handles PDF rotation.
Improve the description in my SKILL.md so it triggers on the right user phrases.
Review my SKILL.md and move detailed sections into reference files to keep the body lean.
Run through the validation checklist for my skill and list any structure, description, or writing-style issues to fix.
Best Practices
- Write descriptions in third person and include the exact phrases users would say to trigger the skill.
- Keep SKILL.md lean at roughly 1,500 to 2,000 words and move detailed material into reference files.
- Write the body in imperative form and reference every bundled script, example, and asset.
Avoid
- Writing vague descriptions without concrete trigger phrases.
- Placing all content in one large SKILL.md instead of using progressive disclosure.
- Using second-person phrasing instead of direct imperative instructions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this skill for?
Does it write the skill for me?
What files does a skill need?
How long should SKILL.md be?
What is progressive disclosure?
How do I make a skill trigger reliably?
Developer Details
Author
anthropicsLicense
MIT
Author version
v0.1.0
Skillstore revision
r3
Version notice
The installable content changed, but the author did not update the declared version.
Ref
80999bf530a7874d7bedf8ce202001ecb4c4f5e0
Maintenance freshness
7/21/2026
Usage
10 downloads · 347 views
File structure