Anthropic just launched Agent Skills, a system that lets Claude load specialized capabilities on demand. Think of skills as custom onboarding materials. They’re folders with instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude accesses automatically when relevant to your task.
The implementation is clever. Claude scans available skills to find matches, then loads only the minimal information needed. This keeps Claude fast while accessing specialized expertise. Skills stack together, work across all Claude products, and can include executable code for tasks where programming is more reliable than token generation.
You’ll see skills in action as Claude works. They appear in the chain of thought, so you can watch Claude identify which skills it needs and coordinate their use.
For Claude apps, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users get pre-built skills for document creation plus the ability to create custom skills. A “skill-creator” skill provides interactive guidance, asking about your workflow and generating the folder structure without manual file editing.
For developers, there’s a new /v1/skills endpoint for programmatic control. Pre-built skills handle Excel spreadsheets with formulas, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and fillable PDFs. Custom skills extend Claude for specific use cases. Claude Code gets skills through the plugin marketplace or manual installation.
Partners are already seeing impact. Rakuten reports management accounting workflows that took a day now complete in an hour. Box is using skills to transform stored files into presentations and documents that follow organizational standards.
The Pattern Worth Watching#
This is less about the feature, more about the architecture. Instead of making the model heavier, Anthropic is building infrastructure for context-specific expertise. Load skills when needed, keep the core fast, let people package domain knowledge.
That’s the right approach for agents. Not everything belongs in the foundation model. Some things should be modular, shareable, and optional.