What are Skills?

Specialized knowledge, instantly ready

Skills are markdown files that teach your AI assistant how to handle specific tasks. When you install one, your AI gains the context it needs for that domain: the right patterns, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid.

Want Claude to build scroll animations? Install the GSAP skill. Need it to generate PDFs? A skill handles that. Each skill delivers curated knowledge your AI can reference on demand.

Skills vs. MCP servers

You might wonder why skills instead of MCP servers. MCP servers connect your AI to live systems like databases, APIs, and real-time data. Skills take a different approach—they are static files that work without any infrastructure.

Instead of running external servers, skills are static markdown files that deliver instructions and context directly to your AI assistant. That keeps them lightweight, portable, and available without setup or maintenance.

When to use each

Use skills when you need to teach your AI how to do something—following framework best practices, writing code in a particular style, or understanding domain-specific concepts. Skills excel at guidance, patterns, and workflows.

Use MCP servers when your AI needs to interact with external systems, fetch real-time data, or perform actions that require API access. MCP servers are ideal for databases, third-party services, and live connections.

How it works

Skills are markdown files installed into your AI assistant's configuration directory. When you ask for help, your assistant reads the relevant skill to understand how to approach the work.

Each skill contains structured instructions, examples, and best practices. Your AI uses this to provide more accurate and consistent help in that specific domain.

Skills install into your assistant's config directory. Setup takes about five seconds.

Why skills?