# Claude Skills Explained in 7 minutes!

Source: https://qvantx.com/insights/claude-skills-explained-in-7-minutes/
Author: Ani Björkström — QvantX Sweden AB, Stockholm
Published: 2026-01-07
Updated: 2026-09-20
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFQV1K5ew0Y (7 min)
Topic: AI Tools

License: free to quote and cite with attribution to https://qvantx.com

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_AI TOOLS_

## How Do Claude Skills Turn Repetitive Work Into a Digital Assistant?

#### Key takeaways

- Weekly YouTube keyword research and introductions can consume 8 to 12 hours — a repeatable task a Claude skill can absorb.

- Skills are created in claude.ai under Settings, Capabilities: create with Claude, write instructions yourself, or upload an existing skill file.

- The rule is one skill per task: definable and specific, not a bundle of unrelated jobs.

Ani Björkström, a tech consultant based in Stockholm, produces YouTube videos in her free time — and every video requires keyword research plus a scripted introduction, recurring work that takes 8 to 12 hours weekly. Her demonstration shows how to delegate it to a Claude skill: a digital assistant for one well-defined job.

### What is a Claude skill?

A skill is a definition that lets an AI agent interact with external tools and APIs, including a name, a description, and a JSON schema for the inputs it needs. In practice, a skill captures a working method — steps, sources and output format — in a markdown file Claude can pick up whenever the task recurs.

### How do you create a skill in claude.ai?

Log in to claude.ai, open Settings, and find Skills under Capabilities. Clicking the add button presents three routes, and for anything non-trivial the conversational route is the natural start.

| Option | Best for |
|---|---|
| Create with Claude | Building complex skills through conversation |
| Create skill instructions | Skills that are easy to describe directly |
| Upload a skill | Adding an existing skill file you already have |

In the demo, the prompt was: create a skill for YouTube and Google keyword research for the current date, suggesting the five most searched words and questions about AI agents, AI automations and AI news. Generation takes a couple of minutes; a notify-me option spares you watching the screen. One principle matters most: one skill per task — do not combine keyword research and introduction writing in a single skill.

### What does the finished skill actually contain?

The result is a markdown file — skills.md — with a description and a step-by-step method. Step one executes web research for keywords; the next step extracts them and builds the result. It lists topic-specific search queries, then output requirements: the current date, five keywords ranked by interest, five questions people are searching, and a content-type recommendation covering short form, long form and blogs. Because Björkström wanted the date applied at run time, she asked Claude to state explicitly in the skill that it must use the date when the skill is being used — a small edit that keeps results fresh.

### How do you reuse the skill without asking for it?

Download the generated skill file, then upload it under Settings, Capabilities, so Claude can access it in future conversations. From then on, you never mention the skill by name: asking to find the most searched questions in Google and YouTube was enough for Claude to recognize the task, apply the skill, and return a dated markdown report — the top 15 AI keywords ranked as exploding, high or rising, ten long-form video titles such as "AI agent explained," and YouTube Shorts ideas underneath. That is the digital-employee effect: the method runs the same way every time content is planned.

#### FAQ

**Do I have to name the skill in my prompt?**

No. Once the skill is uploaded in settings, Claude recognizes when a request matches it — a plain question about the most searched keywords triggered it unprompted.

**Can one skill cover several tasks?**

It should not. The guidance is one skill per task — keyword research and introduction writing belong in two separate, specific skills.

**What format is a skill saved in?**

A markdown file (skills.md) containing the description, research steps, search queries and output requirements. It is downloadable, and you upload it back into claude.ai settings for reuse.


## Full video transcript

[0:00] Hi, in this video I will show you how to create your first digital assistant. Now, if you haven't met, my name is Annie. I'm a tech consultant based in Stockholm. On my free time, I create YouTube videos. And for every YouTube video, I have to do keywords research to understand what you guys want to see in my videos. Next, I create introduction like this one. Those I have to do every single week. And they can take between 8 to 12 hours every week. What if we delegate this work to a digital assistant? Now in this video together we will create digital assistant. Let's get started. We will create cloud skills to create digital assistant. [music] But before we start creating the skills, let's try to understand what is a skill. For this reason, we will use an IE agent that I created using cloud documentations.

[0:51] Let's ask a question to IE agent. Hey, please explain what is a skill in cloud. I can tell you about cloud skills. They are definitions that let your AI agent interact with external tools and APIs. These definitions include a name, a description, and a JSON schema for the inputs needed. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks a lot for your help. We will login into cloud.ie. [music] And from there, we will go to settings. Underneath capabilities we have skills and if we click on add button we have different options. First option create with cloud build complex skills through conversation. Next option is create skill instructions great for [music] skills that are easy to describe.

[1:38] And the last option is upload a skill. For now we [music] will create skills using create with cloud. You can see that there is a default text saying let's create a skill together using your skill creator skill. First I want a skill to do a keyword research. So I will just delete [music] this introduction. I will write I want you to create a skill for doing YouTube and Google keyword research for the current date. suggest five most searched words and questions about IE I agents IE automations and IE news and then we will click on enter button.

[2:31] Now this can take couple of minutes. First, it starts to read information about creating skills. And if you don't want to look into the screen, you can just click on notify me, which means that as soon as cloud has a decision, it'll send you a notification. There are several things to remember about creating skills. The first one is try to create one skill per task. It should be very definable and specific. For example, you don't want to create one skill for creating introductions and for doing the keyword research. You want to create one skill per [music] task. Yes. So, we have a result right now. You can see that both the skill was created and also cloud used the skill to run the keyword [music] research. First, let's go ahead and read the skill.

[3:16] So, this is basically the skill. It is saved in markup file. [music] You can see skills.md which stands for markup file. Then we have the description describing the skill. [music] Underneath that we have the content I keyword research skill. The step one that is execute web research which means that cloud will search internet for keywords. In the next step it will extract the keywords and it will create a result for us. Next, it specifies topic specific search queries because we specify that we want to get content about IIE agents, I automations, I news, general IE and that is what is involved also in this skill. Next, we have output requirements. It says that current date needs to be in the output.

[4:01] Five keywords ranked by interest. Five questions people are searching and then we have content type recommendation. It can be short, long form, blogs. So this is exactly what we asked for and I really want to make sure that it is using the date when I am using the skill so that I don't get all the information and I will tell the cloud please enter in the skill explicitly to use the date when the skill is being used and then we will click on enter button and once the skill is created You will get this file. It is a downloadable file and you can see that it is called skills. We will go ahead and we'll download this skill first locally in our computer.

[4:50] And then after that we have to upload document in the cloud. We will just click on this button. Next we will go to settings and we'll upload this skill into our cloud settings. And the reason that we need to do this is because next time when we are creating a YouTube video and we need to do the keyword research cloud can access this skill for doing the keyword research. So we will go to the settings and from here if we scroll down we have capabilities on the left side and if we go down here we have add button and upload a skill and from here we can just drag and drop or we can just select the file as I do in here. Okay, the skill was uploaded and the name of the skill is I keyword research.

[5:40] Now let's go back to our chat and try to use this skill. I will ask cloud. Please find the most searched questions and keys in Google and YouTube. So you can see that I'm not specifying anything about the skill. Cloud will understand that we already have a skill and we'll do the keyword research and will present for us. So here we have a result. We can see I keyword. We have a document that is MDO markdown document and we can either download it or you can even read in cloud. If we scroll up we can see that the name of the document is IIE keyword research and then we have the date that is today's date. So that is correct. Then we have top 15 IE keyword and you can see that all of those keywords are ranked by exploding high and rising.

[6:28] If we scroll down, we can see that it came up with comprehensive keyword analysis. And in the [music] end of this document, we even have the name of YouTube videos for long format and for the short format. Here you can see the ones for long format, you have the actual names. For example, I agent explained, we have 10 of those. And then underneath that, we have YouTube short ideas. So we basically created a digital employee for us that can do keyword research every time we want to create a content. In the same way you can go ahead and create other skills. Now if you like this content please like it and see you in the next video. Bye.