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M.D.N Tech
M.D.N Tech

Claude Code Skills: What They Are and Which Ones to Install

19 skills, each with what it does, who wrote it and where to get it. Free, no account, no upsell — and a one-paste install for each of the three we publish ourselves.

Install in one paste ↓Browse 19 skills ↓
01Directory

Every skill, its author, and where it comes from

A curated directory, not our library. 19 entries from 12 authors: 6 are Anthropic's, 3 are written by M.D.N Tech, and the remaining 10 come from nextlevelbuilder, AgriciDaniel, Corey Haines, multica-ai, obra, Vercel Labs, Firecrawl, Julius Brussee, Trail of Bits and ra100.

We do not host, mirror, re-license or install third-party skills. Every card links out to its author, and you install from their repository under their terms.

Showing 19 of 19

02Definition

What a Claude Code skill actually is

A skill is a Markdown file on your machine. That single fact explains most of this page: why there is no registry, no install counter, no account, and why every card above sends you somewhere else.

A skill is a SKILL.md file in ~/.claude/skills/<name>/. Claude Code reads the directory, registers a /name slash command, and follows the file when you invoke it. No runtime, no account, no network call — which is why there is no registry, no install counter, and why every card above sends you to its author.

~/.claude/skills/ is personal and works in every project on your machine. A repo's own .claude/skills/ ships with the codebase, so the skill travels with the work. Skills add no cost on top of your Claude Code plan; Claude Code itself is the paid part.

Anthropic documents the format in the Claude Code skills reference. To write one yourself, read how to create a Claude Code skill. New to the tool itself? Start with our complete guide to Claude Code.

03Install

How to install a Claude Code skill in one command

There is no package manager for skills — installing one means putting a Markdown file in a directory, which is why every card above sends you to its author instead of installing for you. The three we publish get one install each, so you take only what you want: Handoff, Build KB and Polish.

The pattern, for any skill by any author

  1. Make the directory: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/<name>.

  2. Save the author's SKILL.md inside it. For most skills that one file is the whole thing; a larger skill adds folders beside it, and those have to come too.

  3. Open Claude Code in any project.

  4. Type /<name> to verify it registered.

bash / zsh
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/my-skill

That is all any Claude Code skill install is. There is no claude skills install, no package manager and no central registry for bare SKILL.md files — which is why the directory above links out to each author's repository rather than installing anything on their behalf.

Install ours with one prompt

Handoff, Build KB and Polish — three skills, three separate installs, so take only the one you want. /handoff start, wrap, save and docs carry session state between runs; build-kb turns a repository into a chatbot-ready knowledge base; /polish scan, plan and run audit a surface and ship the best wins one sprint at a time.

Paste a block into Claude Code and it reads the source, tells you what the skill does and whether it looks safe, installs it if you agree, then explains how to use it.

Read this first: that safety check is Claude reading the file and telling you what it found — a second pair of eyes, not a sandbox, an audit or a guarantee. Read its answer before you say yes. Installing also overwrites a skill of the same name without asking, so if you already keep skills in ~/.claude/skills/, back them up first.

bash / zsh — backup
cp -r ~/.claude/skills ~/.claude/skills.bak

Handoff

/handoff

Full session lifecycle in one skill: /handoff start, wrap, save, docs. Optional auto-wrap hooks included.

Paste into Claude Code — installs Handoff
Check this Claude Code skill and tell me if it is safe to install. If it is, install it to ~/.claude/skills/ and then briefly explain how to use it.
https://github.com/bugiiiii11/handoff/blob/main/skills/handoff/SKILL.md

Writes ~/.claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.md — one file, the whole skill. Read the source first if you would rather check it yourself.

Build KB

/build-kb

Scan your project and generate a chatbot-ready knowledge-base.md in one shot.

Paste into Claude Code — installs Build KB
Check this Claude Code skill and tell me if it is safe to install. If it is, install it to ~/.claude/skills/ and then briefly explain how to use it.
https://github.com/bugiiiii11/handoff/blob/main/skills/build-kb/SKILL.md

Writes ~/.claude/skills/build-kb/SKILL.md — one file, the whole skill. Read the source first if you would rather check it yourself.

Polish

/polish

Audit any surface, rank the best wins by value over effort, then ship them one sprint at a time.

Paste into Claude Code — installs Polish
Check this Claude Code skill and tell me if it is safe to install. If it is, install it to ~/.claude/skills/polish/ -- it is a multi-file skill, so copy every file in that folder and keep the subfolders -- then briefly explain how to use it.
https://github.com/bugiiiii11/handoff/tree/main/skills/polish

Writes ~/.claude/skills/polish/ — SKILL.md plus its subfolders. Read the source first if you would rather check it yourself.

Restart Claude Code after an install, then type /handoff, /build-kb or /polish to confirm it registered.

Shell commands below are the bash / zsh variant.

What it writes

One folder under ~/.claude/skills/ per skill you install — nothing else. No daemon, no telemetry, no background process, and no network call once the files are on disk. That is a promise about these three skills, not about the rest of the catalogue.

Prefer to run it yourself

Clone and copy the one folder you want. This route also leaves the clone in your working directory — delete it when you are done. Swap handoff for any other skill id, or * to take all three.

bash / zsh
git clone https://github.com/bugiiiii11/handoff.git && \
  mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && \
  cp -r handoff/skills/handoff ~/.claude/skills/

Updating

Paste the same prompt again — it overwrites the folder in place, so there is no stale clone to pull and no second copy to reconcile. On the manual route, git pull in the clone and copy the folder across again.

Uninstalling

Delete the skill's directory. Nothing else to unwind — these skills write no config anywhere else.

bash / zsh
rm -r ~/.claude/skills/handoff
04FAQ

Claude Code skills: the questions we actually get

For people who arrived with one specific question.

Do I need a paid Claude plan or an API key?

The skills add nothing on top of whatever you already pay for Claude Code — they are files it reads, not a subscription feature. Claude Code itself does require a Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan, or an API (Console) account; the free Claude.ai plan does not include it. Individual entries can have their own requirements — Firecrawl needs a Firecrawl API key, and every MCP server authenticates to its own service — but that is the third party's requirement, not ours.

Can I install one skill instead of the whole directory?

Yes, and it is the only option. There is no command that installs the catalogue. Each of the three M.D.N Tech skills has its own install prompt, so taking one does not bring the other two; each of the other 16 entries installs from its own author's repository, under that author's instructions. Browse the M.D.N Tech skills on GitHub.

What exactly does the install write, and how do I undo it?

One directory under ~/.claude/skills/ for the skill you installed — nothing else, and no clone left in your working directory unless you choose the manual route. handoff and build-kb are a single SKILL.md that is the whole skill; polish also ships references, scripts and templates beside it, so its folder must be copied whole. Back up first with cp -r ~/.claude/skills ~/.claude/skills.bak, because a same-named directory is replaced without prompting. Undoing it is one delete per skill: rm -r ~/.claude/skills/handoff — or Remove-Item -Recurse -Force on Windows.

Are these skills licensed for commercial use?

The M.D.N Tech skills are MIT, so yes for those. For every other entry we hold no licence data at all — the catalogue has no licence field — so check the author's repository before you ship with one. We would rather say we do not know than guess on your behalf. Read the MIT LICENSE.

Do these work on Windows?

Yes, and the install section has a PowerShell variant of every command. Nothing on this page is platform-specific.

Does M.D.N Tech track who installs these skills?

No. There is no telemetry in the skills, no analytics script on this site, no install counter and no account involved in getting them. That is also why we publish no adoption numbers anywhere on this page — we do not have any. Read our privacy policy.

How do I turn my codebase into a chatbot knowledge base?

Install Build KB and run it. It reads the user-facing content already in your repository and writes one knowledge-base.md organised into fixed sections, skipping any section the repo has no source for rather than inventing one. Paste the result into any chatbot you like, including ChatKit, where a new chatbot gets 30 free messages and asks for no card.

Take what is useful, ignore the rest

19 skills listed on this page, each linking to the author who wrote it. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to cancel, and no command that makes you take the whole list.

Browse the skill directory →The skills on GitHub

Built a knowledge base with Build KB? See what ChatKit does with it. Otherwise, there is more engineering writing where this came from.