Skills & Instructions

Skills are collections of AI instructions organized by action type. When you mention superclawd in your request, SuperClawd automatically applies relevant skills based on your context.

Action Types

Skills are categorized by action type. Each action represents a different phase of the development workflow:

Creating a Skill

1. Navigate to Skills in your workspace
2. Click Create Skill
3. Fill in the skill details:
   • Name — A descriptive name for the skill
   • Format — Structured (organize instructions into categories) or Markdown (write a free-form markdown body). This cannot be changed after the skill is created.
   • Action Type — Select the action category
   • Execution Mode — How the skill should be applied
   • Description — Explain what this skill does
4. Click Create

Skill Formats

Skills come in two formats. Both are delivered to the AI the same way — the difference is only in how you author the content.

What Claude Code actually loads is a skill's stable release, not its live draft. A skill that has never been released is skipped in normal mode — there is no fallback to the draft. A skill flagged experimental loads its live draft only when the CLI session is in Experimental mode. See Versions & Releases and Experimental Mode for the full model.

• Structured — instructions organized into categories and conditional sub-instructions (see Instruction Hierarchy below). Best when you want granular, reusable building blocks.
• Markdown — a single free-form markdown body (up to 12,000 characters). Best when you already have guidelines written as prose, or want full control over formatting.

Authoring a Markdown skill

A markdown skill is created with an empty body, then authored on its own editor page (the same markdown editor used for agent prompts):

1. Create a skill and choose the Markdown format
2. You're taken to the body editor — write your instructions in markdown
3. Click Save Changes

Markdown skills display their character and token counts (instead of category/instruction counts) in the skills list. The body is delivered to the AI verbatim when the skill activates.

Instruction Hierarchy

Structured skills follow this hierarchy (markdown skills skip it — their content lives in a single body):

Workspace
└── Skill (e.g., "React Best Practices")
    └── Category (e.g., "Component Structure")
        └── Instruction (e.g., "Use functional components")
            └── Conditional Instruction (e.g., "When using forms, prefer controlled components")

• Skills — Top-level containers that group related instructions
• Categories — Optional groupings within a skill for organization
• Instructions — Individual guidelines the AI will follow
• Conditional Instructions — Sub-instructions that apply in specific contexts

Managing Instructions

Each skill contains instructions that guide the AI:

1. Open a skill
2. Click Add Instruction
3. Write clear, actionable instruction text
4. Optionally add categories to organize instructions
5. Add conditional sub-instructions for context-specific guidance
6. Save the instruction

Instruction Best Practices

• Be specific and actionable
• Use clear language the AI can follow
• Include code examples when helpful
• Organize related instructions in categories
• Test your instructions with real prompts

Enabling/Disabling Skills

You can toggle skills on and off:

1. Go to the Skills page
2. Find the skill you want to toggle
3. Click the toggle switch
4. Disabled skills won't be applied to AI prompts

Filtering Skills

Use filters to find specific skills:

• Search — Find skills by name
• Action Type — Filter by create, update, read, etc.
• Status — Show only enabled or disabled skills

Favorites

Mark frequently used skills as favorites for quick access:

1. Go to the Skills page
2. Find the skill you want to favorite
3. Click the star icon on the skill card

Favorited skills appear at the top of your skills list, making them easy to find. Click the star icon again to remove a skill from your favorites.

Skill Hierarchy Limits

To ensure optimal performance, structured skills have the following limits:

Markdown skills have no category/instruction limits — instead, their body is capped at 12,000 characters.

For workspace limits on the number of skills you can create, see Workspace Item Limits.

Pricing

Instructions are charged based on the number of instructions delivered to the AI. When a skill loads into your session, credits are consumed based on the instructions returned.

Markdown skills count as zero instructions, so loading one on its own falls to the minimum charge per request (0.4 credits on paid accounts, 0 on free).

Examples:

• 1-5 instructions → 0.4 credits (minimum)
• 20 instructions → 1.0 credits
• 50 instructions → 2.5 credits

See Billing & Credits for more details on credit management and purchasing.