Day 16 of 21
Create your own personal Skill in 5 minutes
Goal: Pre-built Skills are powerful. A Skill you built yourself, trained on your exact project and preferences, is even more powerful. Today you build one.
What to do
Create the /new-lesson Skill
Start Claude Code and type:
Create a personal Skill called new-lesson that I can trigger with /new-lesson. When triggered it should ask me for: the lesson title, category, summary, and full content. Then it should format and add the lesson following all existing design patterns in this project. Save this Skill to .claude/skills/new-lesson.mdTest the Skill immediately
Type:
/new-lessonAdd a real lesson using only the Skill
Follow the prompts from /new-lesson. Add one short new lesson to your site — for example, a short tip about the 4-part prompt formula. Use only the Skill — no manual prompts.
Create a second Skill
Choose one of these to create. Type the relevant prompt: beginnerHelpPrompt(
)Create a Skill called session-start that I can trigger with /session-start. When triggered it should ask for today's one-task brief, remind me to update CLAUDE.md, confirm I have a branch created, and ask which mode I want to use. Save to .claude/skills/session-start.mdOpen .claude/skills/ and confirm both files
In your file browser, navigate to .claude/skills/ and confirm both Skill files are there. Each should be a small text file ending in .md.
Expected result
You have two personal Skills — one for adding lessons and one for starting sessions. Both are saved files that work every time you type their command.
Key takeaway
- Your own Skill knows your project, your style, and your rules. A general Skill is useful. A personal Skill is powerful. Build the /new-lesson Skill first — it saves the most time in every single future session.