The Claude Code Skills Marketplace

Claude Code shipped with a skills marketplace and most developers don't know it exists. That's a miss, because there are skills in there that meaningfully change what Claude Code can do.

Here's the lay of the land.

What Skills Are

A Claude Code skill is a bundle of three things:

1. Prompts — System context and instructions that get loaded when the skill is active
2. Commands — Slash commands you can invoke (e.g., /commit, /review-pr)
3. Hooks — Automated triggers that fire at specific points (after a file edit, before a commit, etc.)

Skills are YAML/Markdown files that live in a .claude/skills/ directory, either locally in your project or in your global Claude Code config. When you install a skill, its context is available in every session.

Think of them as extensions for Claude Code — similar to VS Code extensions but for AI-driven development.

Finding Skills

The marketplace is at claude.ai/marketplace. The catalog is growing fast — last count was over 380 skills across categories including:

• Dev workflow: commit helpers, PR reviewers, changelog generators
• Code quality: linters, security scanners, architecture reviewers
• Domain-specific: Django helpers, React patterns, AWS CDK guides
• Documentation: docstring generators, README writers, API docs
• Testing: test generators, coverage analyzers, flaky test detectors

The quality varies significantly. Skills from Vercel, Anthropic, and a few active open-source maintainers are well-maintained. Community skills are hit or miss.

Installing a Skill

# Install via Claude Code CLI
claude skills install vercel/nextjs

# Or install directly from a git URL
claude skills install https://github.com/user/my-skill

# List installed skills
claude skills list

# Use a skill command
/review-pr 123

Some skills are project-scoped (install in the project directory) and some are global (available in all projects). The distinction matters — a Next.js skill doesn't belong in a Python project.

How the Plugin Model Works

Under the hood, a skill is a directory with a skill.yaml manifest:

name: my-custom-reviewer
version: 1.0.0
description: "Code reviewer focused on security patterns"

commands:
  - name: security-review
    description: "Review the current diff for security issues"
    prompt: |
      Review the following code changes for security vulnerabilities.
      Focus on: SQL injection, XSS, authentication bypasses, and secrets exposure.
      Format findings as: [CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW] description

hooks:
  - trigger: PreToolUse
    matcher: "Bash(git commit*)"
    prompt: "Before committing, check for any hardcoded secrets in staged files"

context: |
  ## Security Context
  This project handles PII data and is PCI compliant.
  Authentication is handled by Clerk. Never bypass auth checks.

The skill's context is injected into Claude's system prompt. Commands become slash commands. Hooks fire automatically.

Building Your Own Skill

The barrier to building a skill is low — if you can write a good prompt, you can build a skill.

Most useful custom skills I've seen are project-specific:

• A skill that understands your team's code review standards
• A skill that knows your API contracts and validates against them
• A skill that generates tests matching your project's test patterns
• A skill that knows your deployment process and guides through it

These aren't shareable to the marketplace but they're enormously valuable within a codebase.

What to Install First

If you're new to the marketplace, start with:

1. vercel/nextjs — If you're building Next.js apps, this is load-bearing
2. anthropic/commit — Generates good commit messages automatically
3. anthropic/code-review — Structured PR review with consistent format
4. Find one domain-specific skill for your main tech stack

Avoid installing everything — skills that load irrelevant context can actually degrade Claude's focus on the task at hand. Install what you'll use, skip the rest.

The Ecosystem Direction

The skills marketplace is Anthropic's bet that Claude Code becomes more useful through composition — specialists built on top of a generalist. That's the right instinct. The question is whether the community skill quality improves fast enough to make the marketplace genuinely valuable. Early signs are good.