A Skill is a composable package of instructions, context, and supporting files that Claude can automatically invoke during conversations.
At a glance
Length
12 min
Channel
AI News & Strategy Daily | Nate B Jones
Video from
Oct 2025
Rating
⭐⭐ Great video · 2/2
Best for
People handling repeated complex tasks who want to reduce prompt overhead and work across multiple AI platforms.
What this video answers
What exactly is a Skill in Claude?
Can I use a Skill built in Claude inside ChatGPT or Gemini?
How do I know if something should become a Skill?
Do I still have to write good prompts if I use Skills?
How long does it take to build a Skill?
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Understanding Claude's Skills System for Smarter AI Workflows
This tutorial walks through Claude's newly launched Skills feature—a system that lets you create reusable, composable AI capabilities that work not just in Claude, but also in ChatGPT and Gemini. Rather than treating this as just another prompt shortcut, the video explains how Skills represent a fundamental shift away from prompt-dependent workflows toward modular, repeatable AI work packages. The creator, Nate B Jones, demonstrates the full workflow: building a skill from scratch, uploading it to Claude, evaluating it with another LLM, and then deploying that same skill across multiple platforms.
If you're someone who regularly tackles complex, multi-step tasks—whether job search strategy, financial analysis, PowerPoint creation, or vendor risk assessment—this tutorial shows you how to eliminate the friction of rewriting long, detailed prompts each time. The approach works best for tasks you'll repeat regularly and would justify training someone on if you hired them; one-off work doesn't warrant the skill-building effort.
Key Moments
Key Demonstrations and Workflow Moments
Breaking down why prompt-dependent AI work has been difficult and how Skills solve that problem by storing context and instructions in reusable "Lego bricks"
Walking through the Claude Settings page and showing both standard skills (provided by Anthropic) and custom skills you can create yourself
Building a complete job search strategist skill from an imperfect initial prompt, showing Claude read Anthropic's skill-creation documentation and improved the concept collaboratively
Downloading the completed skill as a zip file and re-uploading it into Claude's capabilities section
Uploading the exact same skill zip file to ChatGPT and using it to generate a strong PowerPoint prompt—proving Skills work across different LLM platforms
Explaining the decision framework: use Skills for repeatable, high-value work; skip them for one-off tasks
Important Details Before Building Your First Skill
Skills are stored as simple markdown files inside zip packages, making them portable across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other tools
You don't need a perfect initial prompt—Claude can refine your skill concept through dialogue before building it
The process takes about five minutes once Claude starts building; you receive a complete, downloadable zip file
Clear, concise prompting still matters—Skills reduce prompt length and burden, but not the need for clarity about what you want
You can use a multi-LLM strategy: have ChatGPT critique your Claude-built skill, then bring the feedback back to Claude for refinement
Skills create a 10x leverage on effort for complex work, but they don't replace human judgment or specific context you bring to each task
Frequently Asked Questions About Claude Skills
What exactly is a Skill in Claude?
A Skill is a composable package of instructions, context, and supporting files that Claude can automatically invoke during conversations. Instead of repeating a long prompt every time you need Claude to do something complicated, you create a Skill once—stored as a markdown file plus supporting documents in a zip package—and Claude calls it whenever it detects you're working on that type of task. You just enable the Skill in your Settings, and Claude handles the rest.
Can I use a Skill built in Claude inside ChatGPT or Gemini?
Yes. The video demonstrates uploading the exact same zip file to ChatGPT and asking it to read the skill's contents to generate a strong prompt. Because Skills are just markdown files and supporting documents, they're portable across any LLM platform. You won't get Claude's automatic skill detection, but you can manually upload the file and reference it in your prompt.
How do I know if something should become a Skill?
The rule of thumb is straightforward: if it's something you'd train a new employee on, make it a Skill. Use Skills for repeatable, high-value work you'll do regularly—like job search strategy, vendor assessment, or PowerPoint creation. Skip Skills for one-off tasks or low-value work; the overhead isn't worth it.
Do I still have to write good prompts if I use Skills?
Yes, but with less burden. Skills reduce the length and complexity of your prompts by storing recurring context and instructions, but they don't eliminate the need for clarity. You'll still need to be clear about what you want in each conversation, bring specific context (a job description, vendor details, etc.), and give Claude direction on how to use the Skill. The difference is you're not explaining everything in exhaustive detail anymore.
How long does it take to build a Skill?
In the tutorial, Claude takes about five minutes to build a complete job search strategist Skill once you've provided your preferences and Claude has asked clarifying questions. The entire process—from your initial request to downloading the finished zip file—moves quickly because you're collaborating with Claude on the design rather than building it manually.
A reusable package of instructions, context, and supporting files that an AI model can automatically call and apply to tasks without you having to repeat the full prompt each time.
Composable
Able to be combined in different ways; in this context, Skills work like Lego bricks that can be mixed together or used independently across different workflows.
Multi-LLM strategy
Using multiple different AI models (like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini) together to evaluate, refine, and improve your work rather than relying on a single model.
Markdown file
A simple, text-based file format used to structure Skills; easy to read, edit, and port between different AI platforms.
Prompt dependency
The current state where every task requires you to write a detailed, context-heavy prompt rather than reusing instructions and context stored elsewhere.
Capability
Anthropic's term for what Claude calls Skills—a specialized instruction package that Claude can invoke to handle a specific type of work.
This tutorial is genuinely useful because it reframes what's actually happening with Claude's Skills launch. Most coverage treats it as a prompt-saving feature, but the video makes clear this is about automating entire workflows and unlocking reusable AI capabilities across multiple platforms. The practical walk-through of building a job search skill, then testing it in ChatGPT, proves the concept works in real terms.
What works best here is the multi-LLM strategy—using ChatGPT to critique a Claude-built Skill and bringing that feedback back to Claude for refinement. That's the kind of concrete, actionable workflow that separates this from generic AI content. If you're managing any kind of repeatable work process, this video shows you a real path forward, and that makes it worth your time.
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What's really happening with Claude's new skills feature? The common story is that it's just another prompt shortcut, but the reality is more complicated when it unlocks composable AI work across every major model. In this video, I share the inside scoop on how Claude's skills system changes the game for LLMs:
* Why skills break the tyranny of the prompt and enable reusable, Lego-brick capabilities
* How to build and deploy these capabilities not just in Claude, but in ChatGPT and Gemini too
* What makes this the first real path toward automating complex, multi-step workflows without starting from scratch
* Where the real limits still are and why clear prompts still matter even in a skills-first world
Video transcript for “NEW: Claude's 'Super Prompts' Will Save You DAYS of Work (Full Tutorial + Demo)” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
I think that this is one of the biggest pieces of news in the entire year. Claude launched a way for us to get past the tyranny of the prompt and I worked out a way to use that same technique outside Claude in Chad GPT in Gemini and other places. We're going to dive into the whole thing, but the first piece I
want you to realize is that everything has been prompt dependent and that has made hard work really difficult. Basically, if you want to do something complicated like a PowerPoint or an Excel or a full financial analysis, it's possible, but it's really been prompt dependent. And anything we can do that
makes it slightly easier, slightly less dependent on the prompt is a really big deal because it makes it so much easier for so many more people to do that hard work. That is what we got today from Claude. It's called the skills launch. And the idea is that you have these composable Lego bricks. They're called
capabilities in your settings section. I'm going to show you here in a second. And all you have to do is enable capabilities that Claude can call in any conversation in any combination. And so I'll give you a specific example. One of the things that has been difficult for people to do with AI has been a
complicated task like figuring out a job search strategy. So let's say you need to identify candidate job postings. You need to compose a resume that fits those job postings. You need to make sure that your search strategy actually works for those jobs. That your targeting strategy
works for outreach. This is complicated work. Normally it would take a lot of prompts. It would take many prompts in a row. Some people sign up for tools and services for this. What you can do with Claude is you can make skills that refer to this complicated work and give Claude special instructions to do it well. Like
your job search strategy could instruct Claude specifically what sites you prefer, what job family and roles you prefer, what levels you prefer, what compensation you want. And all of that would be stored inside this Lego brick of context that Claude can go and call. Not when you have to tag it. You don't
have to remember it. You just have to say, "Hey, I'm trying to think about what job search strategy I should use for this week." And then give it some context about your last few weeks, your learnings. Help me figure it out. Claude will look at that initial prompt, understand you're talking about job
search, and go dig up a skill and use it on the fly. It's super intuitive. And the magical thing is because of the way they've simplified the the file structure, the Lego brick, it's just a markdown file. you can use this other places and that's what I figured out. So I'm going to show you that too. You can
use it in Chad GPT in Gemini. And what this does is it makes the whole process of doing a difficult complicated multi-step piece of work so much easier. And so this is not just a story about can we make PowerPoints easier, can we make Excel easier, can we make job search easier. It's a story about can we
do hard work with much less effort. It's like Claude gave us a lever, a 10X lever on our prompting. And so without further ado, I'm going to jump in. And the first thing I'm going to show you is sort of the the settings page, how this actually looks when you when you sign up for it.
But we won't spend much time there. We're going to spend most of our time diving into how you create these because the magic of this is that you are not locked in to whatever the Anthropic and Claude team give you. You can make these yourself. And I can make them for you. And I have. I'm making them for you.
It's so exciting because we can basically make these big packages that help us to effectively do lots and lots of complex work. Another example is vendor AI vendor risk estimation, AI vendor build by solution estimates, super complicated work. You can have a skill for that now. You don't have to
write a gigantic prompt in the same way you did. You can just say, "Hey, please assess this vendor." And it will call the skill. It will be so much more intuitive. I'm so excited for this. All right. So, with that in mind, let's check out that Claude capability screen. Okay. Here we are. We are looking at the
skills that are in Claude. Now, this is my Claude and I want to show you that there are both standard skills and custom skills here. Standard skills, you're going to see brand guidelines, canvas design, MCP builder. These are all skills that Claude provides for us as a way of getting this whole ecosystem
started. I created prompting pattern library and it says so added by me right 59 minutes ago. and it says what it is and it's basically a file of prompting best practices so that if I talk about how I want to create a great prompt, it will just invoke prompting pattern library and make that so much easier.
This is super easy to enable. All you have to do is just enable the skill section at the top and then enable these toggles piece by piece down here and you're done. All right, I want to show you an actual skill that I'm building. So, I said, "Claude, can you help me build a skill for strategizing job
search?" And I want you to note that this is not the world's best prompt. And I did that on purpose. I wanted to call out that it's possible to build a good skill and it doesn't have to be perfect. The prompt doesn't have to be perfect. So, I I just laid out a bunch of things that I wanted, guidance on how to
interview the user, how to target the job, etc. And so, Claude then starts to think about how to create skills. And it turns out that one of the things that Enthropic released, which I think is really smart, is documentation for Claude on creating skills. So Claude read the instruction manual for creating
these this skill and then came back and said, "This is really great. I see this. I have some questions. Here's some questions about how I should analyze the company's news strategies that are most important, etc." I came back with a response. I gave it some examples. I had an LLM help me build some of this and
then said, "Great, excellent details. I'm going to start building." And so it has now spent the last five or so minutes building this skill and it comes back with a job search strategist zip file. It's a complete skill done. It's as easy as that. I can now download this zip file and re-upload it to Claude in
the capabilities section and I will have a usable job search strategist skill. Now, if I want to make it better, which is always one of the things I focus on, I always think about how I can evaluate this skill through the lens of another LLM. And so, I can take this skill over to chat GPT and I can say, "Hey, can you
just crack open this zip file, look inside, and can you assess whether or not this is high quality and make specific recommendations for how to improve it?" And then I can pull that Chad GPT critique, bring it back into Claude, and have Claude further improve the skill. So, I'm not just sitting here
taking what Claude gives me. I'm actually trying to use a multi LLM strategy to make this skill as useful as I possibly can. Now, let's jump over to chat GPT and I'll show you how I can use a skill that I developed in Claude for Claude in Chat GPT. All right, here we are in chat GPT. You see that I've
uploaded a zip file. This is literally the exact same zip file that I would upload if I was in CLA. I am uploading it per chat because that's how chat GPT works. And all I say is, "Using this file, can you help me come up with a really strong prompt for instructing an LLM to build a PowerPoint? You'll need
to crack open the file to do so." So, it opens the file and it immediately comes up with a very strong PowerPoint. I don't have to give it all of this. It reads it in the file. And so, look, I love the cloud interface. It's very intuitive for it to call in the skills. I think that's a lovely touch. But I can
use the exact same files in a chat, GPT chat, and get a great result. I can use them in a Gemini chat and get a great result. And nobody is talking about that. Nobody is saying that really what has been invented is a way of working with AI that gives you composable Lego bricks. I think that's fantastic. And so
you can just pop this in and all you have to do is build the ones you want. And I gave you some of those tips on how you build them. You literally just say what you want and work with Claude to build it. And Claude has the skill creation. And you could do the same thing with chat GPT to be honest. You
can say, "I want you to create a markdown file." The markdown file needs to be a complete clear set of instructions to help a LLM accomplish a very complex task. In addition, please create these other file types that help the LLM do the task. If it's an analysis uh file, you may want to give the LLM
some specific instructions about how to analyze, etc. And then you put it all together into a zip file and you're done. And you have your skill and you can upload that and say, "Hey, refer to this skill. This is how I like things done." You might be wondering now what things should be skills. What things
should be skills? The answer is quite simple. If it is something that you would want to onboard someone with, let's say you have an employee and you want to onboard them and train them, super easy. Just give them a skill. That's what this is for. That's the level we're at. If it's a one-off task,
if you're not going to repeat it, if it's not very high value, don't do a skill. It's just too much trouble. But if it's something where it's like, "No, I'm going to be doing this repeatedly." If I had someone doing this for me, I would give them some training. I would give them some onboarding materials.
That's when you need the skill. And the beauty of the whole ecosystem is that we can all just like create the skills and trade them around and they'll grow. And I think that that is part of what makes this so powerful is that it's not locked into anthropic. People will come up with
ways to use these exact files and other interfaces. I guarantee that people will come up with ways to use these exact same Claude skills folders and files in a dozen other tools in the next month because they're so powerful. So, I'm really excited about this. If you are asking me what is the catch, where do I
need to be careful? I would tell you this. We were using the skills before we knew they existed. So, when I did my video on Excel, when I did my video on PowerPoint, Claude was using those skills. And what I found in practice weeks ago and since as I've been working with those tools daily is that even
though the skills are like a massive 10x step up in helping you get stuff done. I like watch the video on powerpoints. Like it creates incredible powerpoints that save days of work. Like it's a it's a phenomenal job. You still need to prompt well. It does not get you away from prompting well when you do serious
work. Prompting well is like giving this massive cool skill package clear direction. And so it doesn't have to be as long a prompt, but it has to be very clear and unambiguous about where you want to take all of this power, all of this context you've got. So that's if you want to catch, that's the catch. You
still got to be clear in what you're asking for, but you don't have to be as lengthy as you used to have to be. Like if I had to do a complicated piece of work like the job search thing, I would honestly not even do it in one chat. I would just do it in multiple chats, right? And you ask for this and then you
ask for this and then you ask for this, like help me with my resume, help me with my job search, etc. And you have to sort of reinvent the prompt and reinvent the context every time. The power of this is you can do that much more complicated work in a much less heavy lift way. That is why I call them super
prompts because it's like we've taken this load that we've all had to carry for prompting for so long and it's like lifted it. It's like yes, you still have to be clear. It's good to be clear about what you want. It's good to bring your specific context. Bring that specific job description, right? Bring the
specific experience you have that nobody else has, right? But you don't have to carry as heavy a load on just explaining everything in exhaustive detail as you used to have to. And that is a huge breakthrough for all of us. I am so excited for that. So, I'm putting together a whole set of Claude skills
that you can use in chat GPT and Gemini. You can use them in Claude, of course. I can't wait to show them to you. I'll have them out with this video on the substack. It's going to be great. We are just at the beginning of this and I want to give you like a great get started pack so you're off to the races on using
cloud skills. Have fun with your new super prompting powers.
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