Anthropic open-sources "Agent Skills" knowledge base for Claude AI

Anthropic has open-sourced a knowledge base named "Agent Skills" on GitHub (repository: anthropics/skills). This resource provides practical example skills and best practices for Claude's skill system, designed to help developers better leverage the model across various applications.

The repository currently includes 16 public example skills covering multiple domains such as document processing, creative design, development, and enterprise communication. These skills are built with real-world application in mind—document processing capabilities (e.g., handling .docx and PDF files) are already used effectively in Claude’s production environment.

Developers can access these skills via the Claude Code plugin marketplace or directly on Claude.ai (for paid users). They can also create custom skills using the provided specifications and templates, allowing greater flexibility to tailor Claude's capabilities to specific needs.

Agent Skills enable users to define reusable instruction sets in packaged folder formats. Each folder contains a Markdown guide (with YAML metadata), scripts, and other resources that guide the model in efficiently completing specialized tasks. The feature is now available to all paying users on Claude.ai, Claude Code, and via its API.

A core advantage of Agent Skills is its secure coding environment, which supports command-line-level automation. This expands Claude’s role from a coding assistant to a general-purpose computer agent capable of performing tasks executable via a terminal. Additionally, the system employs on-demand loading, where full skill content is only loaded when a task matches, significantly reducing token usage while preserving essential metadata.