AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 8 min read
The usual move is to install a free skill pack, run one command, get back something competent and generic, and decide skills are overrated. The pack was never the problem. Every one of these packs is written for an imaginary average company, and most of them say so in their own README: they expect you to tell them who you are before they do anything useful. Skip that step and you have installed a department that has never met you.
The rule: no skill pack runs on real work until it has a context file describing your business. The install takes five minutes; the context file is the bit that decides whether the pack is worth keeping.
A skill is a folder of instructions (a SKILL.md file, sometimes with scripts) that Claude loads when a task matches it. A pack, or plugin, bundles several skills and slash commands for one area of work. It is all plain text, so you can read every file before switching it on.
Where they run, at time of writing:
Pro is listed at US$20 a month billed monthly (US$17 a month billed annually) on Anthropic's pricing page at time of writing. The page shows dollars only; your UK checkout price in pounds, including VAT, is what you will actually pay, so check it there.
| Pack | Department | What it does | Cost / licence | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anthropic marketing plugin |
Marketing | /draft-content, /campaign-plan, /brand-review, /competitive-brief, /seo-audit, /email-sequence, /performance-report |
Free, Apache-2.0 | One place to plan and draft | Brand voice is only as good as the settings you give it |
Corey Haines marketingskills |
Marketing and social | Around fifty skills including social, copywriting, cold-email, launch, pricing, product-marketing |
Free, MIT | Depth on specific channels | Aimed at software founders; some skills will not fit a service business |
Anthropic example-skills (from anthropics/skills) |
Design | canvas-design, theme-factory, brand-guidelines, frontend-design and more |
Free, Apache-2.0 | Posters, one-pagers, consistent themes | brand-guidelines ships with Anthropic's own brand; replace it with yours |
Anthropic finance plugin |
Finance | /journal-entry, /reconciliation, /income-statement, /variance-analysis, /sox-testing |
Free, Apache-2.0 | Bank reconciliations, monthly P&L | Built for corporate finance teams and US GAAP; not tax advice |
Anthropic legal plugin |
Legal | /review-contract, /triage-nda, /vendor-check, /brief, /respond |
Free, Apache-2.0 | First-pass reading of NDAs and supplier terms | Defaults to US law; UK users must rewrite the playbook first |
1. Anthropic marketing plugin. In Claude Code:
claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
claude plugin install marketing@knowledge-work-plugins
The README says to put your brand voice, style guide and target personas in a local settings file so /draft-content and /brand-review apply them without asking each time. Social posts come through /draft-content.
2. Corey Haines marketingskills. This one installs with the skills command-line tool, which needs Node.js:
npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --list
npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill social copywriting
Install only the skills you will use; --list shows what is there. The repo tells you to write a product-marketing.md file in an .agents/ folder, and says every other skill checks that file first. That is the context file this guide is about. Write it before you use anything else in the pack.
3. Anthropic example skills for design. In Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install example-skills@anthropic-agent-skills
In the Claude app, look under Customize > Skills first: Anthropic's own example skills may already be listed there. Before you use brand-guidelines, swap its colours, fonts and tone for yours. Otherwise every design comes out looking like Anthropic. One thing to know: the document skills (docx, pdf, pptx, xlsx) in the same repo are source-available rather than open source, so read their licence before reusing them.
4. Anthropic finance plugin. claude plugin install finance@knowledge-work-plugins once the marketplace above is added. It expects to connect to systems like NetSuite or Snowflake, which you probably do not have. The README says you can paste data or upload files instead, and that is how a sole trader will use it: export your bank CSV and run /reconciliation against your bookkeeping export. Ignore /sox-testing, which is for US listed-company audit controls.
5. Anthropic legal plugin. claude plugin install legal@knowledge-work-plugins. The README says it defaults to US positions (Delaware, New York, California) and that UK and other users must customise the playbook in .claude/legal.local.md (Claude Code) before relying on its analysis. It also says plainly that it does not provide legal advice. The safest use is /triage-nda as a sorting step: green, yellow or red. Anything yellow or red goes to a human.
Each pack has its own context file, but they all need the same facts about you. Collect those facts once, in an interview, then copy them into each pack's file. Run the prompt below in a fresh chat with the pack installed. Fill in the pack name and paste the pack's file list or README where marked.
You are setting up a newly installed Claude skill pack for a one-person UK business. Your job is to make the pack fit this business, not a generic company.
Pack: [PACK_NAME]
Pack contents (skill names and what each does, or the README): [PASTE_FILE_LIST_OR_README]
Where the pack expects its context file: [FILE_PATH_FROM_README, e.g. .agents/product-marketing.md or .claude/legal.local.md]
Step 1 - Interview me. Ask one question at a time, no more than twelve in total, covering: what I sell and at what price; who buys it and why; how I sound in writing (ask for two short samples); what I do differently from others in my field; the channels, tools and formats I actually use; jurisdiction and any regulated area (assume England and Wales unless I say otherwise); and anything I never want said or done. If an answer is vague, ask a follow-up rather than filling the gap yourself.
Step 2 - Go through the pack skill by skill. For each, give: keep / adapt / ignore; one line on why; and, for "adapt", the exact instruction to add.
Step 3 - Write the context file in Markdown, under 600 words, with headings: Business, Customers, Voice, Differences, Tools and channels, Jurisdiction and limits, Never do. Use only what I told you. Mark anything I did not confirm as [UNCONFIRMED].
Before you answer, check: is every fact in the file one I gave you? Did you flag any skill that assumes US law, US tax or a large team? Ask me for any missing input rather than inventing it.
Save the file where the pack expects it, and keep a copy alongside your own notes so a lost chat does not lose the work. When your prices or offer change, update the file, not the skills.
marketingskills and install only three or four skills from it./sox-testing, the connector set-up for enterprise data warehouses, and the legal plugin's team-briefing commands if you have no team.