Chapter 5

What Are Skills?

Why this matters

In the last chapter, you organised your working folder with spaces for skills, templates, and notes. Now let's teach Claude how to actually DO things.

Your CLAUDE.md tells Claude who you are. Skills tell Claude how to do things.

Think of it this way. Right now, every time you ask Claude to write a quote, you explain your format, your pricing, your terms, your tone. Every. Time. It's like hiring a new employee every morning who's never worked for you before.

A skill file (a .md file, same format as your CLAUDE.md) fixes that. It's a set of instructions that tells Claude exactly how to do a specific task, the same way, every time. Write it once, use it forever. You'll sometimes hear people call these "prompts" or "templates" online, but we call them skills because that's what they are: you're teaching your AI a skill.

What we're doing

Understanding what skills are, why they matter, and what they look like - before we build one in Chapter 6.

The recipe analogy

Imagine you make a great pasta sauce. You've made it a hundred times. It's always good.

Now imagine your friend asks for the recipe. If you say "just throw some stuff in a pan," they'll get a different result every time. Maybe great, maybe terrible.

But if you write down the actual recipe - ingredients, quantities, steps, timing - they'll get the same great result every time.

That's what a skill file is. It's a recipe for your AI.

Without a skill: "Write me a quote for a kitchen repaint." Claude writes something. It's okay. But the format is different every time. Sometimes it includes GST, sometimes it doesn't. The tone varies. The terms are inconsistent.

With a quoting skill: "Write me a quote for a kitchen repaint." Claude reads your quoting skill first, then writes the quote using YOUR format, YOUR pricing rules, YOUR terms, YOUR tone. Every time. Consistently.

What a skill file actually looks like

It's just another .md file (same file type as your briefing file) saved in your Skills folder. Plain text. Nothing fancy.

Here's a simple example - a follow-up email skill for a tradie:

# Skill: Follow-Up Email After Quote

## When to use this
When a client has received a quote but hasn't responded in 5+ days.

## How to do it
1. Check when the quote was sent
2. Write a short, casual email checking in
3. Don't be pushy - just friendly and helpful
4. Include one useful detail (e.g., "still got availability in the next 2 weeks")

## Rules
- Keep it under 5 sentences
- Never use "just following up" (everyone says that)
- Never offer a discount unprompted
- Tone: casual, like texting a mate who happens to be a client
- Always include my phone number at the end

## Example output
Subject: Still keen?

Hey Sarah,

Hope the week's treating you well. Wanted to check if you had any questions about the quote I sent through for the kitchen repaint?

I've got a couple of gaps in the next fortnight if you wanted to lock it in. Happy to chat through anything.

Cheers,
Dave
0412 345 678

See how specific it is? Claude now knows: when to use this skill, the structure, what NOT to do, the tone, and an example of what good looks like.

Stuck? Hit the purple ? button at the bottom right of this page and ask your question. The AI tutor knows this chapter inside out.

Skills by industry

Here's what different businesses might build:

Tradies

Quoting skill - format, pricing rules, inclusions/exclusions, GST handling
Follow-up skill - chasing quotes that haven't been accepted
Invoice chasing skill - friendly reminders for overdue payments
Job completion skill - end-of-job email to client with photos and review request
Supplier ordering skill - how to format material orders

Marketing Agencies

Client report skill - monthly report format, metrics to include, tone
Content brief skill - how to write a brief for a designer or copywriter
Campaign summary skill - weekly performance update format
Onboarding email skill - welcome sequence for new clients

Service Businesses

Booking confirmation skill - what to include, timing, tone
No-show follow-up skill - how to handle missed appointments
Review request skill - asking for Google reviews after a job
Rebooking skill - "haven't seen you in 6 weeks" message

Freelancers

Proposal skill - how to write a project proposal
Scope document skill - defining what's included and what's not
Weekly update skill - client progress email format
Invoice skill - payment terms, format, follow-up timing

You don't need all of these on day one. Pick one. The one task that eats the most of your time. That's what we build in Chapter 6.

💡 Skills for your specific apps

In Course 2, you'll learn how to build skills that teach Claude your specific business apps. Xero, ServiceM8, Cliniko, Jobber, whatever you use. Instead of switching between apps all day, you'll tell Claude "log this job in ServiceM8" or "create an invoice in Xero" and it handles it. Same skill system, just connected to your tools.

💡 Why not just ask the same question each time?

You might be thinking "can't I just type the same instructions every conversation?" You can. But here's the difference:

Without a recipe file, you're training a new employee every single morning. You explain your format, your pricing, your rules, your tone. Every. Single. Time. And you'll forget something, guaranteed.

With a recipe file, you train them once. They read their instructions every morning before they start. Same quality every time. You write it once, benefit forever.

The key insight

Here's the thing that makes skills so powerful:

Claude reads your skills before it does anything.

Every time. Automatically. When you ask Claude to write a quote and there's a quoting skill in your Skills folder, Claude reads the skill first, then writes the quote according to your rules.

You don't need to say "use my quoting skill." You don't need to remind it. The skill is always there, always read, always followed.

This means:

Your AI gets MORE consistent over time, not less
New team members get the same quality output as you on day one
You build the skill once and benefit from it forever
Every improvement you make to a skill is permanent

That last point is the most important. We'll cover it in Chapter 7 - but the short version is: when Claude gets something wrong, you don't just correct the output. You fix the skill. And then it never makes that mistake again.

What you just learned

Skills are recipe files that tell Claude how to do specific tasks consistently
They're plain text .md files in your Skills folder in your working folder
Each skill has: when to use it, how to do it, rules, and an example
Claude reads skills automatically before doing anything
Start with one skill for your biggest time-waster

Try it yourself

Before moving to Chapter 6, think about this:

What's the one task you do every week that takes the most time?
How do you do it today? What are the steps?
What are your rules? (Things you always do or never do)
What does a "good" result look like?

Write your answers down. You'll use them in the next chapter to build your first skill.

Chapter 4: Your AI Brain Chapter 6: Your First Skill