Adopts a published skill set without giving up control of the project
Customizing agents · competency customizing-agents/adopts-a-skill-set
Taught in: the Customizing agents course
Draws on: Agent skills, Project instructions, Hooks, permissions, settings
Learning objectives
Vets a published skill set before installing it, as they would a dependency (base)
| Claim | Why | Example |
|---|---|---|
| The learner checks the license of the set and of each skill they plan to use. | One collection can mix licenses, with open-source skills next to skills that are only source-available [1]. | The learner finds that the document skills in a collection are source-available and uses only the Apache-licensed ones in the team's repository. |
| The learner looks at who maintains the set, how recently it changed and how its changes are released. | A skill set is code that runs in every session, and one that nobody maintains drifts away from the agent it was written for. | The learner sees regular releases with a changelog and an open issue tracker, and notes the version they reviewed. |
| The learner reads every skill, script and hook in the set before installing it. | A plugin's hooks and scripts run in the learner's sessions with the session's permissions [2]. | One skill runs a setup script that writes to the home directory, so the learner reads the script before deciding. |
| The learner compares the set with the alternatives, including writing the few skills they need. | A set of thirty skills brings thirty descriptions and thirty things to keep up to date, and the team may need three of them. | The learner writes their own review skill from the two ideas they liked, and does not install the whole collection. |
Served by: Adopting a published skill set
Adopts a few skills at a time and checks each one's effect and context cost (base)
| Claim | Why | Example |
|---|---|---|
| The learner turns on one or two skills at a time and uses them on real work before adding more. | With one change at a time, a better or worse result can be traced to the skill that caused it. | The learner uses the planning skill for a week of tickets before trying the review skill from the same set. |
| The learner checks how much context the installed skills add to every session. | The description of every model-invoked skill loads in every session, whether or not the skill is used [3]. | The context breakdown shows the skill descriptions growing after the install, so the learner makes two rarely used skills user-invoked. |
| The learner removes a skill that did not change the results. | A skill with no effect still costs context and still has to be kept up to date. | After two weeks the commit-message skill produced the same messages as before, so the learner uninstalls it. |
Served by: Adopting a published skill set
Keeps the project's own instructions, hooks and permissions in charge when a skill set disagrees (base)
| Claim | Why | Example |
|---|---|---|
| When a skill contradicts the project's instructions, the learner changes or drops the skill and leaves the instructions as they are. | When two instructions conflict, the agent may follow either one, so the conflict must be removed [4]. | A skill says to commit after every change, the project says to commit once per task, and the learner removes that step from their copy of the skill. |
| The learner keeps enforcement in the project's hooks and permissions, and no skill widens them. | A skill is text the agent reads, and only hooks and permission rules enforce anything [5]. | A skill asks for permission to run any shell command, and the learner keeps the narrow allowlist and adds only the one command the skill needs. |
| The learner pins the version of the set and reviews each update before taking it. | An update changes what runs in every session, and a pinned version changes only when someone decides it should [6]. | The team turns off automatic updates for the marketplace and reads the changes of each new release before moving the pin. |
Served by: Keeping the project in charge
References
- Anthropic. Agent Skills (the anthropics/skills repository). GitHub. Reference.
anthropics skills - Anthropic. Plugins overview. Claude Code documentation. Reference.
Claude Code plugins - Anthropic. Extend Claude with skills. Claude Code documentation. Reference.
Claude Code skills - Anthropic. How Claude remembers your project. Claude Code documentation. Reference.
Claude Code memory - Anthropic. Best practices for Claude Code. Claude Code documentation. Reference.
Claude Code best practices - Anthropic. Install and manage plugins. Claude Code documentation. Reference.
Claude Code plugin install