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How to use Claude’s “Skills” 🥋
PLUS: A ‘newsletter writer’ skill I created for you (for free)
Ryan Carr
October 30, 2025
Hello everybody, welcome back to Moodboard 🌴
Two weeks ago, Claude quietly rolled out one of its most useful features to date.
It's called “Skills”, and if you use Claude regularly, it has the potential to transform your entire workflow for the better.
Today I'm going to break down how to use this new capability (and share a custom skill that I built for you to download for free 🤝)
Let's dive in 👇
What Are Claude Skills?
Normally, when you want an LLM to do something specific, you have to prompt it each time.
Or maybe you set up custom instructions in a project, but then you can only use those instructions when you're in that project. Otherwise, you're back to copying and pasting the same prompt over and over.
Skills change this completely. A Reddit user explained this with a great analogy:
Think about Neo's "I know kung fu" moment in The Matrix. Just like they uploaded kung fu directly into Neo's brain and he could instantly use it, you're uploading specialized knowledge into Claude that it can apply automatically whenever needed.
When you create a Skill, you're building a knowledge package with instructions, best practices, examples, and specific guidance for a task. You download it, upload it back into Claude's Skills section, and you're done.
From that point forward, whenever you mention anything relevant to that Skill (or even just start a task it applies to), Claude automatically uses that knowledge. It's like giving Claude a reference guide it checks before starting work.
The beauty is the "anywhere, anytime, automatically" part. You don't have to keep uploading prompts. You don't have to be in a specific project. It takes the concept of custom instructions and makes it universal across every single conversation you have.
Skills just work in the background whenever they're relevant, no manual triggering needed.
It's Claude's "I know kung fu" moment.
For right now, skills are currently available for paid Claude users (Pro, Team, and Enterprise plans). If you're on the free plan, you'll need to upgrade to access this feature.
Why Are Skills Useful for Moodboard Subscribers?
We can create skills to serve as custom instructions for some of the most common marketing and content deliverables that we've been building prompts/projects for.
Have a very specific way that you want Claude to write your newsletters? Upload it as a custom skill and now, anytime you ask Claude to create a newsletter from a conversation or train of thought, it will load those specific instructions and use them to complete the task.
Need Claude to always format your LinkedIn posts a certain way? Create a skill for that.
Want Claude to remember your brand voice, preferred frameworks, or content style across all your conversations? Skills make it happen automatically.
Instead of maintaining a doc/database full of prompts to copy-paste or setting up multiple projects with the same instructions, you can build the Skill once and it travels with you everywhere in Claude.
How Do I Create a Custom Skill?
Good question! We're going to get "meta" here, but the easiest way to do this is to utilize Claude's "skill-creator skill."
Yes, there's a skill for creating skills. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Open Claude and start a new conversation. Tell Claude you want to create a custom skill. For example: "I want to create a skill that helps me write newsletters in my specific style."
Step 2: Claude will interview you about your requirements. It'll ask questions like what type of task the skill should handle, what specific instructions or guidelines should be included, and what examples demonstrate the desired output.
This is where you'd share things like your writing style preferences, format requirements, common mistakes to avoid, or any frameworks you always use.
Step 3: After gathering all the information, Claude creates a complete skill file for you. It packages everything into a structured format with clear instructions, examples, and guidance.
Step 4: Download the skill file that Claude generates.
Step 5: Go to your Claude settings, navigate to “Capabilities”, scroll down to the Skills section, and upload the skill file you just downloaded.
That's it. The skill is now active across all of your conversations, and Claude will load it up when applicable.
A Skill I Made Just For You
You may remember that a few months ago, we shared our recipe for building great newsletters in Claude (here's the guide if you want to read the whole thing).
Well, I took all of those best practices and instructions and rolled them up into a custom skill that you can download and use in your own Claude workspace.
This skill includes everything from that original guide: tone guidelines, structure recommendations, and an AI-ism elimination checklist we developed.
Once you upload it (using the same process from “Step 5” above), Claude will automatically apply these principles whenever you're working on newsletter content.
Try It Out!
I've been experimenting with Skills for a couple of weeks now, and it's genuinely transformed how I work with Claude.
Instead of constantly referring back to my prompt database or remembering which project has which instructions, I just start a conversation and Claude already knows how I want things done.
Try creating skills for your specific content types: social posts, sales emails, blog articles, video scripts, whatever you create regularly.
The skill-creator skill makes it surprisingly easy to build these knowledge packages. It’s as simple as having a brief conversation with Claude about what you need, and it does the heavy lifting of structuring everything into a reusable skill.
Give it a try this week. Build a skill for one of your most repetitive prompts and see how it feels to have Claude automatically remember your preferences.
I'm curious to hear what skills you end up creating. Hit reply and let me know what you build!
Until next week,
Ryan