- Sharing skills significantly increases their value, standardizing code review processes and ensuring a consistent experience across an organization.
- Skills can be distributed in various ways: by committing them to a repository for team use, via plugins for broader community sharing, or through enterprise-managed settings for mandatory organizational standards.
- Sub-agents do not automatically inherit skills; they must be explicitly assigned to custom sub-agents, and built-in agents are unable to access any skills.
Sharing skills
- Commit skills to your repository in an
include/skillsdirectory for automatic distribution to team members on clone or pull, ideal for project-specific standards. - Package skills as plugins by creating a
skillsdirectory within your plugin project to share functionality across teams and via a marketplace for community access. - Deploy organization-wide skills through managed settings; these enterprise skills take highest priority and override others to enforce mandatory standards or compliance.
- Sub-agents start with a clean context and do not automatically see or inherit skills from the main conversation.
- Built-in agents, such as the explorer, plan, and verify, are incapable of accessing any skills.
- Custom sub-agents can use skills, but only if they are explicitly listed in the
skillsfield of theiragent.mmdfile located inclaw/agents. - Skills listed for a sub-agent are loaded when the sub-agent starts, not on demand, so include only those skills always relevant to its specific purpose.
- This explicit skill assignment for sub-agents is effective for isolated task delegation requiring specific expertise (e.g., specialized reviewers) or enforcing standards without relying on prompts.
claw code — A platform or tool that allows for the use of "skills" to standardize and enhance workflows, particularly code reviews.
skill — A piece of custom functionality or a defined practice that can be shared and applied within the claw code environment.
repository — A version control system location where code and associated files, including claw code skills, are stored and managed.
plugin — An extension for claw code that provides custom functionality, designed for sharing across multiple teams and projects, often distributed via a marketplace.
marketplace — A platform or store where claw code plugins and skills can be downloaded and shared by users.
sub-agent — An autonomous entity or process within claw code that can be delegated specific tasks, requiring explicit assignment of skills.
built-in agent — Pre-defined agents within claw code (e.g., explorer, plan, verify) that cannot access custom skills.
custom sub-agent — A user-defined sub-agent that can be configured with specific skills for isolated task delegation and expertise.
agent.mmd — A configuration file used to define custom sub-agents and explicitly list the skills they should load.
Skills become more valuable when shared. A PR review skill that only you use is helpful. The same skill shared across your team standardizes code review and provides a consistent experience amongst your organization which much better. Here are ways you can share your skills. Now the simplest sharing method is committing skills to your repository. Place them include/skills. Anyone who clones a repository gets these skills automatically. No extra installation. It's just what you're doing already. When you push update, everyone gets them on the next poll. This works well for team coding standards, project specific workflows, skills that reference your codebase structure. Another way you can distribute your skills is through plugins. Think of plugins as ways to extend Claude Code with custom functionality, but designed to be shared across teams and projects. In your plug-in project, create a directory called skills. This will then follow a similar file structure to the Claude directory in our project with the name of the skill with a skill.md file. And after you distribute your plugin to a marketplace, other users can download it into Claude Codes for themselves to use. This is best if your skills have functionality that isn't too project specific and can be used by community members. Administrators can deploy skills organizationwide through managed settings. Enterprise skills take highest priority. Like we discussed before, they override personal project and plug-in skills with the same name. This is for mandatory standards, security requirements, compliance workflows, coding practices that must be consistent across the organization. Keyword must. Here's something that surprises people. Sub agents don't automatically see your skills. Yeah, when you delegate a task to a sub agent, it starts with a fresh, clean context. Built-in agents like the explorer, plan, and verify can't access skills at all. Only custom sub agents you define can use them and only when you explicitly list them. To create a custom sub agent with skills, add an agent.mmd file include/ aents. The skills field lists which skills to load. These skills are loaded when the sub aent starts, not in demand like in the main conversation. So take that into consideration. First ensure the skills exist. Okay, it exists. Then create the sub agent using the claw code sub aent creator. If you have a sub agent that you want to add these skills to already just go to the existing agent.md file. Then after that create the skills fields and add your skills. When you delegate to the sub agent it has both skills loaded and applies them to every single review. Now this pattern works really well when you want isolated task delegation with specific expertise. Different sub agents need different skills. Front-end reviewer versus back-end reviewer. You want to enforce standards and delegated work without relying on prompts. Only list skills that are always relevant to the subage's purpose. Share skills through project directories for team access, plugins for cross repository distribution, or enterprise deployment for organizationwide standards. Sub agents don't inherit skills automatically, so list them explicitly in the sub agents skills field. Built-in agents can't access skills. Only custom sub agents can in your claw/ agents. Skills load when the sub agents start, so only list skills that are always relevant to its purpose.
TL;DR
- Sharing skills significantly increases their value, standardizing code review processes and ensuring a consistent experience across an organization.
- Skills can be distributed in various ways: by committing them to a repository for team use, via plugins for broader community sharing, or through enterprise-managed settings for mandatory organizational standards.
- Sub-agents do not automatically inherit skills; they must be explicitly assigned to custom sub-agents, and built-in agents are unable to access any skills.
Takeaways
- Commit skills to your repository in an
include/skillsdirectory for automatic distribution to team members on clone or pull, ideal for project-specific standards. - Package skills as plugins by creating a
skillsdirectory within your plugin project to share functionality across teams and via a marketplace for community access. - Deploy organization-wide skills through managed settings; these enterprise skills take highest priority and override others to enforce mandatory standards or compliance.
- Sub-agents start with a clean context and do not automatically see or inherit skills from the main conversation.
- Built-in agents, such as the explorer, plan, and verify, are incapable of accessing any skills.
- Custom sub-agents can use skills, but only if they are explicitly listed in the
skillsfield of theiragent.mmdfile located inclaw/agents. - Skills listed for a sub-agent are loaded when the sub-agent starts, not on demand, so include only those skills always relevant to its specific purpose.
- This explicit skill assignment for sub-agents is effective for isolated task delegation requiring specific expertise (e.g., specialized reviewers) or enforcing standards without relying on prompts.
Vocabulary
claw code — A platform or tool that allows for the use of "skills" to standardize and enhance workflows, particularly code reviews.
skill — A piece of custom functionality or a defined practice that can be shared and applied within the claw code environment.
repository — A version control system location where code and associated files, including claw code skills, are stored and managed.
plugin — An extension for claw code that provides custom functionality, designed for sharing across multiple teams and projects, often distributed via a marketplace.
marketplace — A platform or store where claw code plugins and skills can be downloaded and shared by users.
sub-agent — An autonomous entity or process within claw code that can be delegated specific tasks, requiring explicit assignment of skills.
built-in agent — Pre-defined agents within claw code (e.g., explorer, plan, verify) that cannot access custom skills.
custom sub-agent — A user-defined sub-agent that can be configured with specific skills for isolated task delegation and expertise.
agent.mmd — A configuration file used to define custom sub-agents and explicitly list the skills they should load.
Transcript
Skills become more valuable when shared. A PR review skill that only you use is helpful. The same skill shared across your team standardizes code review and provides a consistent experience amongst your organization which much better. Here are ways you can share your skills. Now the simplest sharing method is committing skills to your repository. Place them include/skills. Anyone who clones a repository gets these skills automatically. No extra installation. It's just what you're doing already. When you push update, everyone gets them on the next poll. This works well for team coding standards, project specific workflows, skills that reference your codebase structure. Another way you can distribute your skills is through plugins. Think of plugins as ways to extend Claude Code with custom functionality, but designed to be shared across teams and projects. In your plug-in project, create a directory called skills. This will then follow a similar file structure to the Claude directory in our project with the name of the skill with a skill.md file. And after you distribute your plugin to a marketplace, other users can download it into Claude Codes for themselves to use. This is best if your skills have functionality that isn't too project specific and can be used by community members. Administrators can deploy skills organizationwide through managed settings. Enterprise skills take highest priority. Like we discussed before, they override personal project and plug-in skills with the same name. This is for mandatory standards, security requirements, compliance workflows, coding practices that must be consistent across the organization. Keyword must. Here's something that surprises people. Sub agents don't automatically see your skills. Yeah, when you delegate a task to a sub agent, it starts with a fresh, clean context. Built-in agents like the explorer, plan, and verify can't access skills at all. Only custom sub agents you define can use them and only when you explicitly list them. To create a custom sub agent with skills, add an agent.mmd file include/ aents. The skills field lists which skills to load. These skills are loaded when the sub aent starts, not in demand like in the main conversation. So take that into consideration. First ensure the skills exist. Okay, it exists. Then create the sub agent using the claw code sub aent creator. If you have a sub agent that you want to add these skills to already just go to the existing agent.md file. Then after that create the skills fields and add your skills. When you delegate to the sub agent it has both skills loaded and applies them to every single review. Now this pattern works really well when you want isolated task delegation with specific expertise. Different sub agents need different skills. Front-end reviewer versus back-end reviewer. You want to enforce standards and delegated work without relying on prompts. Only list skills that are always relevant to the subage's purpose. Share skills through project directories for team access, plugins for cross repository distribution, or enterprise deployment for organizationwide standards. Sub agents don't inherit skills automatically, so list them explicitly in the sub agents skills field. Built-in agents can't access skills. Only custom sub agents can in your claw/ agents. Skills load when the sub agents start, so only list skills that are always relevant to its purpose.