What are 'Degrees of Freedom' in skill design?

It refers to the level of specificity in instructions: high freedom for flexible tasks using text, and low freedom for fragile, error-prone tasks using specific scripts.

What are the core components of a Claude Code skill?

Every skill requires a SKILL.md file with YAML metadata. It can optionally include scripts for deterministic tasks, references for documentation, and assets for templates or boilerplate.

What is a Claude Code Skill?

A specialized, modular capability that extends Claude's behavior with domain-specific guidance, tool integrations, and procedural knowledge tailored for specific tasks.

Why is conciseness important when creating skills?

Conciseness preserves the context window, which is a shared resource. Efficient skills ensure Claude has more room for conversation history and code analysis.

How should I organize large documentation within a skill?

Use the 'references/' directory to store large files. This follows the progressive disclosure principle, where content is only loaded if Claude determines it is necessary for the task.

Skill Creator

Name: Skill Creator
Author: fred-drake

byfred-drake

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Developer Tools

Guides the creation and optimization of custom Claude Code skills to extend AI capabilities with specialized knowledge and workflows.

About

The Skill Creator is a foundational utility designed to help users build high-quality, context-efficient Claude Code skills. It provides a standardized framework for extending Claude's capabilities through specialized workflows, tool integrations, and domain expertise. By emphasizing the Progressive Disclosure design principle, this skill ensures that custom extensions remain token-efficient while providing deterministic reliability through bundled scripts, assets, and organized reference materials. It is the essential starting point for anyone looking to transform Claude from a general-purpose assistant into a specialized domain expert for their specific projects.

Key Features

15 GitHub stars
Guidance on setting appropriate 'Degrees of Freedom' for AI tasks
Standardized SKILL.md template generation and YAML metadata guidance
Modular resource management for scripts, references, and assets
Step-by-step skill development and packaging workflow
Progressive Disclosure architecture for context window optimization

Use Cases

Developing a proprietary coding standard skill for internal engineering teams
Refactoring verbose system prompts into modular, high-efficiency skill packages
Building a domain-specific integration skill for complex APIs or database schemas

About

Key Features

15 GitHub stars
Guidance on setting appropriate 'Degrees of Freedom' for AI tasks
Standardized SKILL.md template generation and YAML metadata guidance
Modular resource management for scripts, references, and assets
Step-by-step skill development and packaging workflow
Progressive Disclosure architecture for context window optimization

Use Cases

Developing a proprietary coding standard skill for internal engineering teams
Refactoring verbose system prompts into modular, high-efficiency skill packages
Building a domain-specific integration skill for complex APIs or database schemas