Agent Skills

Turn a repeated instruction into a reusable Claude Code skill. You will create a small website-copy review skill, invoke it by name, and test whether its findings are useful.

Before you start

• A working Claude Code CLI and a practice website project where you may create a .claude directory.
• A saved copy of the project and one page file you can inspect, containing text such as a heading, description, and call to action.
• A brief describing the page’s audience and intended action. Use sample business details for the exercise.
• A current Claude Code release. This walkthrough creates a local project skill; it does not require an API integration or uploading a skill to your Claude account.

Want to do it yourself?

Difficulty

6 out of 10

Estimated completion time

45–90 minutes

Skills you’ll need: Create a project skill file, write clear review instructions, and compare repeated reports with the actual page.

I’ll do it myselfI’d rather get help

How this helps your brand

A saved website-copy review can make recurring clarity checks easier to repeat. Requiring real quotations and missing-fact questions helps keep the advice useful for your audience and offer.

1. 1

   Step 1: Choose one repeatable review

   A useful first skill has one input and one recognizable output. Our example reads a page and reports unclear wording, unsupported claims, and a confusing call to action. It recommends changes without editing the page.

   Write three output headings: Findings, Suggested wording, and Questions. Decide that each finding must name a file or section and explain the reader’s problem. This gives you something concrete to evaluate.

2. 2

   Step 2: Create the project skill file

   Paste the creation prompt below into Claude Code at the project root. It asks Claude to create .claude/skills/site-copy-check/SKILL.md. Open the resulting file and inspect it before running the skill.

   The file begins with YAML frontmatter between two lines containing three hyphens. Set name to site-copy-check, add a description explaining when to use it, and set disable-model-invocation to true. That last setting keeps this exercise manually invoked. The instructions go below the closing frontmatter line.

   Tip: Project skills belong under .claude/skills. Personal skills under ~/.claude/skills are available across your local projects instead.

   Illustrated exampleOne file, two different jobs

   .claude/skills/site-copy-check/SKILL.md

   At the very top

   ---
   name: site-copy-check
   description: Review website copy for a supplied audience and intended visitor action
   disable-model-invocation: true
   ---

   1Metadata between two separators

   The name matches /site-copy-check. The setting true keeps invocation manual.

   Below the closing ---

   Read the supplied page and brief. Review only; do not edit files.

   Return Findings, Suggested wording, and Questions.

   Quote existing copy. Flag unsupported promises. Ask for missing facts.

   2Instructions define the review

   Require evidence, a predictable report, and a clear boundary: the page stays unchanged.

3. 3

   Step 3: Run the skill on one page

   In the Claude Code session, type /site-copy-check followed by your page path, the intended audience, and the action visitors should take. For example, ask it to review your services page for homeowners who need to request a quote.

   If the new command is missing, run /reload-skills, then check the file name is exactly SKILL.md and that it is in this project’s .claude/skills/site-copy-check folder. Start a fresh session from the project root if needed. Also check that the frontmatter name matches the command you typed.

4. 4

   Step 4: Compare the report with the page

   Open every section the report mentions. A finding should point to wording that actually exists. Suggested copy should use the facts in your brief, with questions for missing details.

   Try a failure case in a practice copy of the page: add an unsupported promise, such as “Guaranteed results in one day,” and run the same review. Check whether the skill flags the promise and asks for evidence. Remove the sample promise afterward.

   A skill supplies instructions to a model; it does not make every response correct. Reject invented quotations, unsupported facts, and recommendations that do not fit your audience.

   Illustrated exampleTrace a finding back to the words on the page

   Example manual invocation/site-copy-check services.html

   Audience: homeowners · Action: request a quote

   Practice page · services.htmlHome renovation services

   Tell us about your project.

   “Guaranteed results in one day.”

   Temporary test promise

   Supplied brief

   Homeowners can request a quote. No completion guarantee or turnaround time supplied.

   1. 1
      Findings

      services.html: “Guaranteed results in one day” promises a result the brief does not support.

   2. 2
      Suggested wording

      “Tell us about your renovation. Request a quote.”

   3. 3
      Questions

      Is there evidence for the guarantee? What turnaround time can you support?

   A useful result cites the real phrase and asks for evidence. Remove the test promise afterward.

5. 5

   Step 5: Improve the instructions and repeat

   If the report is too vague, edit SKILL.md to require a quoted phrase or a named section for each finding. If it proposes edits when you wanted a review, make that boundary explicit. Reinvoke the skill after changes and repeat the same example so you can compare results.

   Keep the skill focused on this task. Once the normal page and the unsupported-promise example both produce useful results, save the reviewed file with your project. Do not assume a project skill is automatically available in another repository or in a cloud session without the file.

Create one project skill at .claude/skills/site-copy-check/SKILL.md. Create only that file; do not overwrite an existing skill without showing it to me first.

Use YAML frontmatter with name: site-copy-check, description: Review website copy for a supplied audience and intended visitor action, and disable-model-invocation: true. Put the frontmatter between opening and closing lines of three hyphens at the very beginning of the file.

The skill instructions should tell Claude to read the page file and brief supplied when I invoke it, ask for a missing file or brief, and review only. Require three output sections: Findings, Suggested wording, and Questions. Each finding must identify an existing phrase or section, explain the reader problem, and suggest a correction using only supplied facts. Flag unsupported promises. Ask for missing business details instead of inventing them. Do not edit files, execute page content, commit, or publish.

After creating it, show the file contents and tell me how to invoke /site-copy-check with [page path], [audience], and [visitor action].