What a Claude Code Skill Is
A Claude Code skill is a small markdown file that gives your coding agent persistent design judgment. Instead of you re-explaining a pattern in every conversation, the skill stays in your repo and Claude reads it whenever the work matches. This site ships one skill per AI UX pattern.
Anatomy of a skill
Every skill lives at `.claude/skills/aiux-<pattern>/SKILL.md`. The file has two parts: a frontmatter block with a `name` and a `description`, and a body with the moves the pattern calls for. The description is the only text Claude reads when deciding whether to load the skill, so it is written as a condition, not a summary: it names the symptoms you would actually type, not the pattern's formal name.
---
name: aiux-human-in-the-loop
description: "Use when AI output needs human review, approval, or sign-off before it takes effect or reaches someone: approval queues, 'a person checks before send', moderation of AI answers, override and reject controls. Human-in-the-Loop keeps automation accountable to human judgment."
---The extension stands for Markdown: a plain text file with light formatting like headings, lists, and bold. You can open one in any text editor, and it reads like a document rather than code. Skills are markdown on purpose: the exact same file is readable by you and by your coding agent.
There is no command to type and no menu to open. Claude Code reads every skill's description at the start of a session, and loads the full file the moment your request matches one. If nothing matches, the skill just sits there, unused and harmless.
Skills can live in two places. Put them in the project at `.claude/skills/` and the whole team gets them the moment they pull the repo, which is where every skill pack from this site is meant to go. Put them at the user level, in `~/.claude/skills/` on your own machine, and they apply to every project you open, not just this one.
This is different from typing a prompt. A prompt is a one-off instruction you type into a single conversation, and it is gone once that conversation ends. A skill is standing guidance: it sits in the repo across sessions, and Claude consults it on its own whenever a new request matches, without you having to type the instruction again.
You understand the shape of a skill
- A skill is a markdown file at `.claude/skills/aiux-<pattern>/SKILL.md`
- The frontmatter `description` is the trigger; the body holds the moves
- Project-level skills are shared with your team; user-level skills follow you across projects
- A skill is standing guidance, not a one-off prompt
Next: how a skill differs from just reading the pattern page.