How to Use Skills in ChatGPT and Claude: A Practical Guide
Learn what skills are in ChatGPT and Claude, how to install and create them, and which free skills are worth adding to your workflow.
What are skills in ChatGPT and Claude?
A skill is a reusable instruction manual that Claude or ChatGPT can follow without you having to re-explain a process every time. Instead of retyping the same detailed prompt in every new conversation, you save that prompt once as a skill, and the model reuses it whenever you call it. Under the hood, skills are mostly plain text, usually markdown files, sometimes bundled with a bit of code. Claude added skills first and makes them available across its plans, including the free tier. ChatGPT added a version of this more recently, but it currently lives inside “work” features that require a paid plan.
TL;DR
- Skills are text-based instruction sets that Claude and ChatGPT can reuse across conversations, so you stop rewriting the same detailed prompts.
- Claude supports skills on its free plan under Customize, while ChatGPT currently limits skills to its paid “work” tier, accessed through Plugins.
- Skills are transferable between the two platforms because they’re just markdown text, though the file format changes slightly and the move isn’t always perfectly smooth.
- A built-in skill creator (called “skill creator” in Claude and “template creator” in ChatGPT) can turn any multi-step process you just did into a saved, reusable skill.
- Because skills are readable text, you can open any skill file and inspect exactly what it tells the model to do, which addresses most security concerns before installing one from someone else.
- Several free, community-built skills already solve common problems, including clarifying vague ideas, generating structured reports, surfacing alternative approaches, and explaining complex topics visually.
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How do you install a skill in Claude?
In Claude, go to Customize and scroll down to the Skills section. From there, you can browse existing skills or click the “Add” button in the top right to either upload a skill file from your computer or create a new one from scratch. If you already have a skill saved, clicking the three dots next to it lets you download it as a file, which you can then share or move elsewhere. This works on Claude’s free plan, not just paid tiers, which makes it the easier entry point if you want to try skills without committing to a subscription.
How do you install a skill in ChatGPT?
ChatGPT handles skills differently, and the feature is newer, so the exact placement may shift over time. As of now, skills are only accessible inside ChatGPT’s “work” environment, which requires the paid plan. Once you’re in work, click Plugins on the left sidebar, then look for the Skills tab near the top. It’s not the most obvious placement. From there, clicking the plus button lets you upload a skill from your computer or create a new one. Downloading a skill you’ve built follows the same three-dot menu pattern as Claude. Skill files are technically transferable between the two platforms since they’re both text-based, though Claude converts the file into its own skills format, so moving files between systems can require a small adjustment rather than a straight drag-and-drop.
How do you create your own skill?
Both platforms include a built-in tool for turning a process into a skill automatically. In Claude, it’s called the skill creator, invoked by typing “/skill creator” in a chat. In ChatGPT, the equivalent is called the template creator, invoked with ”@” instead of a slash command. The idea is simple: if you just walked through a multi-step task with the AI and it worked well, you ask the skill creator to save that process as a reusable skill. This also matters when you’re importing a skill built for the other platform, since running it through the skill creator helps convert the format correctly instead of pasting raw text and hoping the model interprets it the same way.
Which free skills are actually worth installing?
A handful of community-built skills have become popular for good reason, and each solves a distinct problem.
Grilling is built to interrogate a vague idea until it has real clarity, asking rounds of clarifying questions (often 15 to 25, sometimes as many as 50) and offering a suggested answer for each so you can move quickly if you agree. It’s designed for early-stage thinking, the kind of session someone runs before committing to a business idea or project direction.
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A professional report generator follows a fixed sequence: clarify scope, search the web, plan the structure, write the content, and export to a document format. Rather than producing a report instantly, it forces a planning stage first, which tends to produce noticeably better output than a single-shot prompt. Teams that generate reports regularly can customize this skill to match their own templates.
Idea Refine generates five to eight variations of an idea using specific reasoning lenses: inversion (what’s the opposite approach), simplification (what’s a version ten times simpler), and scale (what would this look like at massive scale), among others. It’s useful when you already have an idea but want to see angles a single person might not think of on their own.
Eli5 takes a complex topic and produces a visual, simplified explanation, going further than a basic “explain it simply” prompt by generating an interactive visual layout of the concept. It’s reportedly used internally at Anthropic for digesting unfamiliar material quickly, which says something about how useful a good explainer skill can be even for people who work with AI daily.
Unslop targets so-called AI slop, the lazy, under-edited output that comes from handing a task to a model and passing along whatever it produces without refinement. It’s a newer, less-tested addition compared to the others, but it points at a real workflow problem: using AI faster doesn’t help if it just shifts sloppy work downstream to whoever receives it.
Is it safe to install skills from other people?
Because skills are plain text files (markdown, occasionally with light code), you can open any skill before installing it and read exactly what instructions it gives the model. There’s no hidden execution layer or opaque binary to worry about. That transparency is part of why skills have spread quickly among both casual and technical users: the barrier to inspecting one before trusting it is low. That said, always read through an unfamiliar skill’s steps before running it on sensitive data, especially if it references web searches or file exports, so you understand what it will actually do in a live session.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly is a skill in ChatGPT or Claude?
It’s a saved, reusable set of instructions, mostly written in plain text, that tells the model how to approach a specific task every time you invoke it, instead of you retyping the same prompt.
Do I need a paid plan to use skills?
Claude supports skills on its free plan through the Customize menu. ChatGPT currently restricts skills to its paid “work” tier, accessed via the Plugins section.
Can I move a skill from Claude to ChatGPT or vice versa?
Yes, since both are text-based formats. Claude converts uploaded files into its own skills format internally, so the transfer isn’t always perfectly clean, but the underlying content is portable.
How do I turn my own workflow into a skill?
Use the built-in skill creator (Claude, via “/skill creator”) or template creator (ChatGPT, via ”@”). Ask it to save the process you just completed as a reusable skill.
Are free skills safe to download and use?
Since skills are just text files, you can open and read the full instructions before installing anything, which makes it straightforward to check what a skill actually does before trusting it with real work.
