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Claude Code supports skills through a plugin system that allows you to install individual skills or curated skill collections from marketplaces. Once installed, skills are automatically activated when relevant to your tasks.

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Installing skills from a marketplace

You can register third-party marketplaces as sources for Claude Code plugins. The Anthropic skills repository provides two curated plugin collections.
1

Register the marketplace

Add the Anthropic skills marketplace to Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
This registers the anthropic-agent-skills marketplace, which contains two plugin bundles:
  • document-skills: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF capabilities
  • example-skills: Skill creation, MCP building, visual design, and more
2

Browse available plugins

Open the plugin browser in Claude Code:
  1. Run /plugin or select Browse and install plugins from the command palette
  2. Select anthropic-agent-skills from the marketplace list
  3. Choose either document-skills or example-skills
  4. Select Install now

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Direct plugin installation

If you know which plugin you want, install it directly without browsing: 
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

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What’s included in each plugin

Comprehensive document processing capabilities:
  • xlsx: Create, read, and modify Excel spreadsheets
  • docx: Generate and edit Word documents
  • pptx: Build and update PowerPoint presentations
  • pdf: Read, merge, split, fill forms, extract text and images from PDFs
These are the same production skills that power Claude’s document capabilities in Claude.ai.

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Using installed skills

Once a plugin is installed, you can use its skills by simply mentioning them in your requests. Claude Code automatically activates the appropriate skill based on your task.

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Example workflows

1

Mention the skill explicitly

Reference the skill by name in your request:
Use the PDF skill to extract form fields from contracts/agreement.pdf
Claude Code will load the PDF skill and execute the task.
2

Let Claude detect the need

Alternatively, describe your task naturally:
Extract all text from the quarterly-report.pdf file
If the pdf skill is installed, Claude Code will automatically activate it based on the .pdf file extension and extraction task.
Skills contain descriptions that help Claude determine when to activate them. For example, the PDF skill’s description includes: “Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart…”

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Creating custom marketplace plugins

To create your own marketplace:
  1. Create a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file in your repository:
{
  "name": "your-marketplace-name",
  "owner": {
    "name": "Your Name",
    "email": "[email protected]"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "description": "Your marketplace description",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "your-plugin",
      "description": "Plugin description",
      "source": "./",
      "strict": false,
      "skills": [
        "./skills/skill-one",
        "./skills/skill-two"
      ]
    }
  ]
}
  1. Users can then add your marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add your-username/your-repo

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Skill structure

Each skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter and instructions: 
---
name: my-skill-name
description: A clear description of what this skill does and when to use it
---

# My Skill Name

[Instructions that Claude will follow when this skill is active]

## Examples
- Example usage 1
- Example usage 2

## Guidelines
- Guideline 1
- Guideline 2
Skills can also include bundled resources:
  • scripts/: Executable code for deterministic tasks
  • references/: Documentation loaded as needed
  • assets/: Templates, icons, fonts used in output

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Managing plugins

/plugin list

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