Agent Skills are folders (a SKILL.md plus scripts and resources) that teach Claude to perform a task in a repeatable way. Rather than "where to get them," this guide focuses on which skill to use for which task — practical scenarios by use case. Everything here follows the official Anthropic Agent Skills docs. (As of June 2026.)
Ready-to-use pre-built document skills
The easiest starting point is Anthropic's pre-built document skills. With no setup, you ask for a task and Claude picks the right skill and produces a real file.
- pptx: create presentations, edit slides, analyze presentation content
- xlsx: create spreadsheets, analyze data, generate reports with charts
- docx: create documents, edit content, format text
- pdf: generate formatted PDF documents and reports (and analyze them)
These skills are available on the Claude API, Claude Platform on AWS, Microsoft Foundry, and claude.ai.
How skills load — progressive disclosure
The key advantage is progressive disclosure. At session start, Claude scans only each skill's short metadata. When you ask for a task, it picks the relevant skill and only then loads that SKILL.md's full instructions. So even with many skills registered, they barely occupy context until needed — and Claude can load and combine multiple skills at once.
By use case — what to use for what
Common real-world tasks and the matching skill:
- Turn a monthly report into slides: organize text/data into a deck →
pptx - Clean data and make charts: tidy tables into a report with formulas/charts →
xlsx - Draft/edit contracts and documents: create and edit while keeping formatting →
docx - Formatted PDF deliverables: produce distribution-ready PDFs →
pdf - Your team's repeated workflow: standardize anything the pre-built skills don't cover with a custom skill
Note: The pre-built document skills are used in both demos and production, but the document-skill implementations in the anthropics/skills repo are source-available (not open source), and official docs note the behavior you get from Claude may differ from those implementations.
Custom skills and the public repo
When pre-built skills aren't enough, build your own. A skill is simple — a SKILL.md folder with YAML frontmatter (name, description) and markdown instructions. On the Claude API you upload via the Skills API (/v1/skills), shared workspace-wide. On claude.ai you can upload custom skills as a ZIP. For patterns and examples, see the public anthropics/skills repo (see the related guide below for how to build one).
Related reading
Where to get skills: Claude skills library; how to build one: create a custom skill; the concept: Claude Code skills guide.
Note: This article is based on Anthropic's official Agent Skills documentation (accessed June 2026); available skills, supported surfaces, and behavior may change. This site is not affiliated with Anthropic.