Claude SkillsLesson 15 of 15

Share and Distribute Skills

A skill is just a SKILL.md file. That makes sharing simple: send the file, push it to GitHub, or publish to a skills marketplace — each method is covered below.

Three ways to share a skill

#	Method	Best for	How it works
01	Send the file directly	Quickest — one person	Attach the .md file; recipient drops it in ~/.claude/skills/
02	Publish to GitHub	Most common — teams and collections	Push to a public repo with README and license; others clone or copy-install
03	Submit to a marketplace	Widest reach — polished skills	Publish to SkillHub, SkillsMP, or Smithery for ratings and install counts

Step 1 — Prepare your skill for sharing

Before sharing, make sure your SKILL.md is easy for a stranger to understand and install. Add these fields to the frontmatter and verify them against the checklist below.

code-review.md

---
name: code-review
version: 1.0.0
description: >
  Review staged code changes for issues before committing.
  Usage: /code-review [severity]
  Example: /code-review critical
  Outputs: Critical, Warning, and Suggestion findings grouped by severity.
author: your-github-username
license: MIT
allowed-tools:
  - Read
  - Bash
---

## Context
- Date: $CURRENT_DATE
- Branch: $(git branch --show-current)
- Staged diff: $(git diff --cached)

## Role
You are a senior code reviewer. Focus on correctness and security.

## Steps
1. Read the staged diff from context.
2. If a severity flag is given (critical / warning / all), filter to that level.
3. Report findings in three groups: Critical, Warnings, Suggestions.

## Output format
### Code Review — $(git branch --show-current)
[Critical]  (list)
[Warning]   (list)
[Suggestion] (list)
Summary: X critical, Y warnings, Z suggestions.

## Constraints
- Only review staged changes, not the full file.
- Skip style suggestions unless they affect correctness.

name is lowercase, hyphenated, no spaces
version follows semver (1.0.0)
description includes Usage:, Example:, Outputs:
author field set to your GitHub username
license declared (MIT is the community default)
allowed-tools lists only what the skill actually uses
tested at least once on a real project

Step 2 — Publish to GitHub

The recommended layout is one file per skill, a short README showing how to install and use each one, and a license file.

github.com/you/claude-skillsmain · 5 files

README.mdInstallation and usage guide

LICENSEMIT License

code-review.mdReview staged changes before committing

standup.mdWrite daily standup from git context

translate.mdTranslate text between any two languages

Keep the README short. All a user needs is how to install and what commands each skill adds.

README.md

# code-review skill

A Claude Code skill that reviews your staged changes before you commit.

## Install

```bash
# Option 1 — copy the file
cp code-review.md ~/.claude/skills/code-review.md

# Option 2 — clone and symlink
git clone https://github.com/you/claude-skills
ln -s $(pwd)/claude-skills/code-review.md ~/.claude/skills/
```

## Usage

```
/code-review            # all findings
/code-review critical   # critical only
```

## Requirements
- Claude Code (claude.ai/code)
- Git repository with staged changes

## License
MIT

Terminal

# Install one skill

$ curl -o ~/.claude/skills/code-review.md \

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/you/claude-skills/main/code-review.md

# Install the whole collection

$ git clone https://github.com/you/claude-skills ~/claude-skills

$ ln -s ~/claude-skills/*.md ~/.claude/skills/

Skills available as /code-review, /standup, /translate

Step 3 — Submit to a marketplace

Each marketplace has a slightly different submission process, but they all start from a public GitHub repo.

Marketplace	Submission	Note
SkillHub (skillhub.dev)	Paste repo URL at skillhub.dev/submit; team reviews within 48 h	S/A/B/C rating system — detailed descriptions score higher
SkillsMP (skillsmp.com)	Fork skillsmp/skills-registry; add skill under /skills/; open PR	Community-run via GitHub PRs — no separate account needed
Smithery (smithery.ai)	Package as MCP extension; add smithery.yaml; run npx -y smithery publish	Suits skills that expose tools as MCP servers, not plain SKILL.md files

Sharing within a team

Store team skills in the project repository. Claude Code automatically loads skills from .claude/skills/ at the project root, in addition to the user-level ~/.claude/skills/ directory.

your-project/

├── src/

├── package.json

├── .claude/

│ └── skills/

│ ├── code-review.md— shared via git

│ ├── standup.md

│ ├── deploy-check.md

Commit .claude/skills/ to your repository. Every developer who clones the project gets the team skills automatically — no manual install step required.

Terminal

# Developer joins the project and clones the repo

$ git clone https://github.com/your-org/your-project

$ cd your-project

# Claude Code detects .claude/skills/ automatically

$ claude

Loaded 3 project skills:

/code-review /standup /deploy-check

Ready

Versioning and updates

Use semantic versioning in the version field. Tag each release in Git so users can pin to a known-good version.

Change type	Version bump	Example
Fix a bug, improve wording	Patch (1.0.0 → 1.0.1)	Corrected output format typo
Add a new argument or step	Minor (1.0.0 → 1.1.0)	Added severity flag support
Rename, restructure, break compatibility	Major (1.0.0 → 2.0.0)	Renamed /review to /code-review

Skill names are how users invoke the skill (e.g. /code-review). Renaming a skill is a breaking change — always bump the major version and note the rename in your changelog or README.

Before you continue

Share directly, via GitHub, or through a marketplace depending on reach needed.
Add version, author, license, and Usage/Example/Outputs before publishing.
Commit .claude/skills/ for automatic team distribution.
Use semver and git tags; renaming a skill is a major version bump.
Next module: Introduction to Claude Plugins.

What's Next

You've mastered Claude Skills. The next module introduces Claude Plugins — bundles of Skills, Connectors, and Commands you can install and share as a unit.

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Skills with Subagents

Introduction to Claude Plugin