Skills

Skills are reusable task templates with step-by-step instructions. They differ from agents: agents are delegatable specialists (a different “person” doing the work), skills are more like checklists - structured guidance for a task that the main Claude session follows directly.

This repo includes four skills:

Directory structure:

skills/
  debug-wp/
    SKILL.md    ← the step-by-step instructions
  figma/
    SKILL.md
  playwright/
    SKILL.md
  qa-check/
    SKILL.md

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/ globally, or .claude/skills/ for project-specific ones.

Skill frontmatter

Skills support 10 frontmatter fields:

Field What it does
name Display name (defaults to directory name). Lowercase, numbers, hyphens, max 64 chars.
description What the skill does and when to use it.
argument-hint Hint shown during autocomplete (e.g., [issue-number]).
disable-model-invocation Set to true to prevent Claude from auto-loading this skill.
user-invocable Set to false to hide from the / menu.
allowed-tools Tools Claude can use without permission when skill is active.
model Model to use when skill is active.
context Set to fork to run in a forked subagent context.
agent Which subagent to use when context: fork is set.
hooks Hooks scoped to this skill’s lifecycle.
Example: A debugging skill (SKILL.md) 
---
name: debug-wp
description: Starts a structured interview to diagnose WordPress issues, then proposes a ranked list of solutions.
argument-hint: "[symptom or error message]"
disable-model-invocation: true
allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, AskUserQuestion
---

# Skill: debug-wp

## When to Use
Use this skill when diagnosing any WordPress problem...

## Procedure
### Phase 1: Triage Interview
Ask questions in this order...

Run /debug-wp 500 error on checkout page to invoke with arguments. The argument-hint text appears in the autocomplete menu.

Forked context

Set context: fork to run the skill in a separate subagent. The skill content becomes the prompt. Use agent to specify which subagent type handles it - built-in agents (Explore, Plan, general-purpose) or custom subagents from your agents/ directory.

String substitutions

Skills support variable substitution: $ARGUMENTS (full argument string), $ARGUMENTS[N] or $N (Nth argument), ${CLAUDE_SESSION_ID}, and ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}.

Dynamic context

The !`command` syntax runs shell commands before skill content is sent to Claude. Use it to inject dynamic context - git status, current branch, file listings - into the skill prompt.

Bundled skills

Claude Code ships with several built-in skills: /simplify (code quality review), /batch (parallel large-scale changes), /debug (troubleshoot via debug log), /loop (repeated prompt execution), and /claude-api (API reference).

Memory

Without understanding memory, you don’t know how Claude retains context between sessions. You might wonder why it remembers a correction you made last week, or where those learned preferences actually live. Two systems handle this: CLAUDE.md (your explicit instructions) and auto memory (Claude’s own notes).

Auto memory

Claude writes notes for itself based on corrections you make and preferences it observes. If you tell Claude “always use const instead of let in this project,” it remembers that for next time. This is enabled by default - you don’t configure it, and it’s separate from your CLAUDE.md files.

The difference: CLAUDE.md is what you tell Claude. Auto memory is what Claude tells itself.

MEMORY.md

The entrypoint for auto memory is MEMORY.md. Claude creates and maintains this file automatically. The first 200 lines load at the start of every session - this is the auto-loaded limit for MEMORY.md specifically, not for CLAUDE.md files (which load in full regardless of length).

Topic files

When Claude accumulates enough notes on a subject, it creates separate .md files alongside MEMORY.md - things like debugging.md, api-conventions.md, or whatever topics emerge from your work. These are referenced from MEMORY.md and loaded on demand.

Storage location

Auto memory lives in your Claude directory, organized by project:

~/.claude/projects/<project-path-encoded>/memory/
├── MEMORY.md
├── debugging.md
└── api-conventions.md

The <project-path-encoded> is derived from your git repo’s absolute path. For this repo, it’s -Users-stuart-Personal-project-claude-setup. You can browse these files directly - they’re plain markdown.

The /memory command

Type /memory in Claude Code to see all loaded CLAUDE.md and rules files, toggle auto memory on or off, and open the memory folder. See the official docs for the full reference.

Subagent memory

Agents can maintain their own persistent memory using the memory frontmatter field. See the memory field in Agents frontmatter for how subagents store their own notes. Three scopes are available:

Scope Location Use when
user ~/.claude/agent-memory/<name>/ Learnings across all projects
project .claude/agent-memory/<name>/ Project-specific, shareable via VCS
local .claude/agent-memory-local/<name>/ Project-specific, not in VCS

CLAUDE.md vs auto memory

Use CLAUDE.md for explicit instructions you want every session - “use tabs,” “no console.log,” “always write tests first.” Let auto memory handle learned patterns and corrections - things Claude picks up from how you work. If auto memory records something wrong, edit MEMORY.md directly. It’s your file.

For the full auto memory reference: code.claude.com/docs/en/memory

Files in this folder

How to use this folder in Claude:

  1. Copy skills/ to ~/.claude/skills/
  2. Run / in Claude Code to see invocable skills
  3. Keep each skill’s SKILL.md focused, with frontmatter that matches invocation intent
File What it does
debug-wp/SKILL.md Structured WordPress debugging interview and ranked remediation workflow.
figma/SKILL.md Figma MCP workflow for extracting design context/screenshots/variables before coding.
playwright/SKILL.md Playwright MCP workflow for snapshot-first interaction, form automation, and visual/debug checks.
qa-check/SKILL.md Multi-stack QA audit workflow (accessibility, performance, code quality).

README.md in this folder is the skill system guide you’re reading now.

Continue Reading

Previous: Agents