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Official reference — For how skills work under the hood, see the official skills docs. This page is about picking the right ones and making them work together.
Skills are reusable knowledge packages that load on demand. A skills stack is the set you install for a project — chosen to match your tech stack and workflow.

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The Layered System

Your Claude Code knowledge lives in layers:
LayerPurposeExample
CLAUDE.mdProject-specific context”We use Prisma, run npm test for tests”
SkillsDomain patternsHow to write Zod schemas, Tailwind conventions
ReferencesDeep docsFull API guides, architecture specs
CLAUDE.md tells Claude about your project. Skills teach Claude how to work in your domain. Together they replace the need to explain things every session.

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Building Your Stack

Search for skills that match your tech stack, then install the ones that fit. 
npx skills search nextjs
npx skills search tailwind
npx skills search react-query
Good for: SPAs, Next.js apps, component libraries. Look for skills that cover component patterns, styling conventions, and data fetching.

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Discovering Skills

# Search by keyword
npx skills search <keyword>

# Browse the community directory
# https://skills.sh

# Install from any public GitHub repo
npx skills add owner/repo@skill-name

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Composing Skills That Work Together

Skills are independent by design — each triggers on its own conditions. But some combinations are particularly effective:
  • Testing skill + framework skill — Test patterns that match your framework conventions
  • Validation skill (Zod) + API skill — Input validation patterns that align with your API layer

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When to Create Your Own

Install existing skills when:
  • A community skill covers your need
  • The patterns are standard (React, Tailwind, etc.)
Create your own when:
  • Your team has specific conventions not covered elsewhere
  • You have internal libraries or frameworks
  • You want to encode institutional knowledge (how your team does auth, deploys, etc.)
See the official skills docs for how to build one.