AI Guides › Step-by-step guides
By Nigel Guy · 6 min read
It is tempting to install a pile of skills, glance at the new slash commands and conclude that a whole agency has moved in. In reality you have been handed one-size-fits-all instructions. What comes out sounds like every other account online, and that only becomes obvious once it is live.
The rule: install the skills in minutes, then spend twenty minutes making each one yours, and treat anything with legal or financial weight as a draft for a professional.
This guide covers five departments: marketing, social media, design, finance and legal. Three come from community authors and two (finance and legal) are published by Anthropic. All of it runs in Claude Code.
npx skills add route for the Taste skill.Anthropic's plugin security page says plugins may bring hooks and MCP servers that execute locally under your own user account. So a plugin is not simply a text file of advice. Look through it before you press install.
Not really; they are promotional figures. On 2026-10-04 the marketing-skills README advertised "50+" skills, the social-media-skills README listed 17 public ones, and ui-ux-pro-max boasted numbers like 192 colour palettes and 79 styles. Repositories add and drop skills all the time, and a big number says nothing about quality. After installing, browse what is actually there and keep only the ones you will use.
In a Claude Code session:
/plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills
/plugin install marketing-skills
The README gives the install without an @ suffix. If you want the explicit form, the part after @ is the name the marketplace registered under; /plugin marketplace list shows it. Per Anthropic's docs, in a session /plugin install opens a details panel where you review what the plugin adds and choose a scope: user (every project), project (everyone on the repo) or local (you, this repo only).
/plugin marketplace add charlie947/social-media-skills
/plugin install social-media-skills
According to the README, the repository spans a voice foundation plus LinkedIn, Instagram Reels, YouTube, community and analytics. One creator's way of working shaped it, so plan to bend it to yours.
/plugin marketplace add nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill
Then install the plugin from that marketplace:
/plugin install ui-ux-pro-max@ui-ux-pro-max-skill
The second design option installs through a different tool, so it needs its own command:
npx skills add https://github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill
The taste-skill project bills itself as a framework for keeping agent-built front ends from looking machine-made, so it targets interface code specifically. Neither option replaces a brand designer, but both nudge Claude away from the stock, generic look.
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
Then install each plugin you want:
/plugin install finance@knowledge-work-plugins
/plugin install legal@knowledge-work-plugins
The repository describes finance as covering journal entries, reconciliation, financial statements, variance analysis and audit support, and legal as covering reviewing contracts, triaging NDAs, compliance checks and templated replies. Both list connectors (for example Microsoft 365 and Slack) that you connect separately. The repository says plainly that the legal plugin is not legal advice.
Plugin skills are invoked as /plugin-name:skill-name. Per Anthropic's docs, installed files are stored in a version-organised cache at ~/.claude/plugins/cache/. Whether manual changes survive an update there is something I could not confirm, so stay out of the cache. Instead, duplicate your most-used skill into ~/.claude/skills/<new-name>/ and work on the duplicate. Skills kept there are available in every project, and a change to SKILL.md takes effect in the running session with no restart.
Allow about four minutes per department for three changes: voice, audience and habits to avoid. Do not touch the frontmatter (the name and description block at the top); Claude relies on that description to decide when the skill applies.
I want to tailor one of my Claude Code skills to how I work.
My details:
- Skill file location: [PATH_TO_SKILL_MD]
- What I do and for whom: [BUSINESS_AND_WHO_YOU_SERVE]
- How I sound: [3_TO_5_ADJECTIVES], addressed to [AUDIENCE]
- Habits to avoid in writing: [BANNED_HABITS_E_G_PUNCTUATION_OR_PHRASES]
- Spelling and currency: [UK_OR_US_ENGLISH_AND_CURRENCY]
Please:
1. Open the file and leave its frontmatter completely untouched.
2. Locate where it sets rules for voice, tone or style. If nothing like that exists, tell me and suggest where to add it.
3. Rewrite just that part using my details, changing none of the workflow steps.
4. Present the old and new versions side by side and hold off saving until I say yes.
Rules:
- Make nothing up about my business; ask if any detail above is empty.
- Keep every warning or disclaimer already in the file.
Before you answer, check that the frontmatter is unchanged and that each rule you wrote comes from something I said.
Fill in the path, your business, voice, audience, banned habits and spelling.
/ and look for the commands under each plugin name. Claude Code's docs say a plugin's skills appear as /<plugin>:<skill>.claude plugin list to see each plugin with its scope and status.claude plugin details <plugin name> to see the always-on token cost the plugin adds to every session. Five bundles add up.Quantity without discernment. With dozens of marketing skills loaded and all competing on their descriptions, Claude has a wider field to pick from and your context fills with guidance you never use. Switch off or remove anything untouched (Installed tab in /plugin, or claude plugin uninstall). Anthropic's docs also say auto-update is off by default for most third-party marketplaces and for knowledge-work-plugins, so refresh them deliberately.
hooks/hooks.json and .mcp.json files for any marketplace you do not recognise.