Skills, Connectors, Plugins: what Claude can actually do

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What Are Claude Skills, Really?

Think of Claude Skills as a set of instructions you give to Claude once, and then it follows those instructions every single time without you having to repeat yourself.

In technical terms, a Skill is a structured document called a skill.md file. It contains the name of the skill, a description of what it does, and a detailed workflow defining exactly how Claude should behave.

But in plain terms, a Skill is just your SOP, your standard operating procedure, written in a format Claude can read and follow.

Every time you have trained a new employee and walked them through how you do things, that is what a Skill does. Except Claude never forgets it, never skips steps, and never has a bad day.

You can access Skills inside Claude Cowork by going to the left side navigation, clicking Customise, and then clicking Skills. You will see Skills created by Anthropic as examples, and a space for you to create your own.

Step 1: Create Your First Skill Using Claude

You do not have to write the skill.md file yourself. Claude does it for you.

Go to Customize, click Skills, then click the Add button. You will see three options: Create with Claude, Write Skill Instructions manually, or Upload an existing skill.

Choose Create with Claude.

A new window opens. Claude asks you one question: what should this skill do?

This is where you describe your workflow. Be specific. If you want a skill that writes Instagram Reel scripts, tell Claude exactly that. Tell it the rules: the hook should be in English, the script should be around 45 seconds, it should always give you three hook options.

The more specific you are, the better the skill.

Claude then works on it and does something remarkable. It creates test cases for your skill, runs them in parallel, and shows you the evaluation results before it even gives you the finished file. It flags what passed and what failed so you know the skill is solid before you use it in production.

Once you are happy with it, tell Claude to package it into a skill. It creates the skill.md file and asks if you want to copy it to your Skills library. Click yes. Done.

You now have a custom Claude agent trained on your exact workflow.

Step 2: Understand Connectors

Connectors are how Claude talks to the outside world.

Without a connector, Claude is just answering questions inside a chat window. With a connector, Claude can actually do things. Search the web. Read your Gmail. Draft an email. Access your Slack. Pull data from external tools.

To add a Connector, go to Customize and click Connectors. You will see the ones you already have active and a button to add more. Connectors are categorized by type: data, design, development, financial services, and more.

One of the most powerful connectors for everyday use is Claude in Chrome. This gives Claude the ability to search the web in real time while it is working on your task. So when you ask it to research a company, it does not just use its training data. It actually goes and looks it up right now.

Another high value connector is Gmail. Once connected, Claude can draft emails directly into your inbox.

The skill you create plus the connector you activate equals a real automated workflow. That is where things get serious.

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Step 3: Use Multiple Skills Together

This is where the real power is.

Say you want Claude to find the top decision makers at a target company, write a proposal for them, and draft a personalized email to their inbox.

That is three separate workflows. So you create three separate skills: one for company research, one for proposal writing, one for email drafting. Then in a single prompt, you tell Claude to use all three together.

Claude picks up each skill, follows each workflow in sequence, and hands you the final output.

One prompt. Three skills. A complete business task done.

The way to make this work well is to test each skill individually first, use the evaluation results to fix any gaps, and then combine them once you are confident each one performs correctly on its own.

Step 4: Explore Plugins

Plugins are pre-built bundles of Skills and Connectors organized around a specific department or function.

To find them, go to Customize and click Plugins. Then click Browse Plugins.

You will find bundles for Marketing, Finance, Legal, Productivity, Design, and Enterprise. Each plugin comes with its own set of skills already written, connectors already mapped, and commands you can type directly into Claude.

Commands are shortcuts. If a plugin includes a campaign planning command, you just type slash in your prompt followed by the command name and Claude activates the entire workflow instantly.

If you are new to Skills, starting with an existing Plugin is the fastest way to see what is possible. Pick the category closest to your work, activate the plugin, explore the skills inside it, and then start editing them to match your actual business.

Yes, you can edit any skill, including the ones inside plugins. Click on the skill, hit Edit with Claude, and describe the changes you want. Claude rewrites it for you.

Step 5: Export, Share, and Scale

Once you have a skill that works well, you can download it and share it with your team.

Go to Customize, click Skills, select the skill you want, and download it. The file is a single skill.md document. Your colleagues can upload it to their own Claude and use the exact same workflow instantly.

This is how you scale your SOPs across an entire team without anyone having to repeat the training process.

And if you use Claude Code instead of Cowork, you create a .claude folder inside your project, add a skills folder inside that, and paste your skill.md file there. Same skill, different interface.

Finally…

Here is what I want you to take away from this.

Skills are not a feature for developers. They are a feature for anyone who does repeated work.

If you write emails the same way every week, that is a skill. If you research competitors using the same process every time, that is a skill. If you put together proposals or reports or content using a specific structure, that is a skill.

You already have the workflows. Claude Skills just gives you a way to encode them so an agent can run them for you.

The people who figure this out early are going to look like they have an unfair advantage. And they will. Not because they know how to code. But because they know how to write down what they do and let Claude handle the rest.

Start with one workflow. Build it into a skill today. Test it. Improve it.

Then imagine what happens when you have ten.

Stay curious, talk to you tomorrow.

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