Claude Skills and Plugins

About This Session

In this live session, Tim Cakir shows how Claude Skills and Plugins help teams turn repeatable AI work into reusable, consistent workflows. He first builds a skill manually with Claude's Skill Creator, then shows Anthropic's newly launched Record a Skill feature, which can create a skill by watching you perform a workflow. The goal is simple: stop re-explaining the same task to AI. Package the process once, make the output easier to repeat, and share the workflow with your team. We cover: • What Claude Skills are: folders that use a required SKILL.md file to describe what the skill does, when Claude should use it, and how the task should be performed. • What can live inside a skill: instructions, scripts, templates, brand assets, references, and other supporting files. • Why the skill description matters: Claude uses the skill metadata to decide when a skill is relevant to a request. • How skills differ from saved prompts: a prompt is reusable text, while a skill can package the instructions, files, output format, and optional deterministic scripts needed for a repeatable workflow. • How to create a skill manually with Claude's Skill Creator. • How Anthropic's new Record a Skill feature works inside Claude Cowork by capturing screen actions, clicks, typing, and voice, then turning the demonstrated process into a reusable skill. • What Claude Plugins are: packaged collections that can include skills, commands, connectors, assets, readme files, and setup instructions for a specific area of work. Live demo highlights: • Tim built a Daily Card skill with the Skill Creator, turning priorities, calendar events, and follow-ups into a printable one-page A4 card. • He explained the basic skill structure: a folder with a required SKILL.md file, plus optional scripts or supporting files when needed. • He saved and ran the skill from a new chat, showing Claude connect to Google Calendar, Gmail, and Notion to prepare the card. • Tim then used Record a Skill to capture a Beehiiv newsletter analytics workflow and turn it into a reusable Beehiiv Weekly Stats skill. • He ran the recorded skill in a new chat, where Claude used Chrome to open Beehiiv, review newsletter performance, and summarize the results. • He showed how related skills can be grouped into a broader AI Newsletter plugin, then walked through AI Operator examples for writing, Slack, video, graphics, and training. Main takeaways: • Skills are best for repeatable workflows where the inputs, process, and output format need to stay consistent. • A strong skill starts with a clear SKILL.md: what the skill does, when to use it, what inputs it needs, and what output it should produce. • Keep skills focused. One clear workflow is easier for Claude and the team to trigger reliably. • Add scripts when parts of the workflow need more deterministic, repeatable output. • Record a Skill is useful when the process is easier to show than explain. Claude can watch the work once, then turn it into a reusable starting point. • Recorded skills still need review and iteration. Test the result, improve the instructions, and refine the workflow before sharing it widely. • Plugins are useful when several related skills, commands, connectors, and assets belong together in one area of work. • The biggest opportunity is to look at the work your team repeats every week, turn those workflows into skills, and package related skills into plugins so everyone can run the same process consistently.

What we covered

• 1 Claude Skills
• 2 Claude Plugins
• 3 Anthropic
• 4 AI tools for business