Skills in Claude Code: where they live, how to install a plugin, how to check

Where skills live

Project skills

.claude/skills inside a project. Anyone working in that folder gets them.

Personal skills

~/.claude/skills in your home folder, for every project. On Windows: C:\Users\<you>\.claude\skills.

Plugin skills

Installed from a marketplace and named after the plugin first, like document-skills:xlsx.

Install Anthropic's document skills

1. Type claude and press Enter to start Claude Code in your project folder.
2. Run /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills. It is added as anthropic-agent-skills.
3. Run /plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills.
4. Read Plugin details and Will install, then pick Install for you (user scope) for every project on this computer.
5. Run /reload-plugins so it works without a restart.

Check it worked

• /plugin, then the Installed tab: document-skills, enabled.
• /skills: docx, pdf, pptx and xlsx appear, locked on by the plugin, next to your project skills.
• To remove a plugin, open /plugin, go to Installed and uninstall it there.

Use it

Make this week's [REPORT NAME] from [FILE NAME] as an Excel file.

Don't name a skill. Claude asks before it creates a file and before it runs a command: read each request, then pick 1. Yes.