Built-in Skills

Claude Code includes bundled skills that extend its capabilities. These are prompt-based tools that Claude uses to orchestrate specific workflows. Invoke them directly with /skill-name or ask Claude to use them when relevant.

Official documentation: Bundled skills and commands

Available Bundled Skills

/simplify

Scans your recent changes for consolidation and reuse opportunities, then applies fixes across the codebase. Spawns three review agents in parallel to identify redundancy, quality issues, and efficiency improvements.

/simplify focus on memory efficiency

/debug

Enables session-level debug logging and investigates unexpected behavior by reading the debug output. This is useful when a tool call hangs, a command behaves incorrectly, or you're stepping through a complex flow.

/debug investigate why the last tool call hung

/batch

Parallelizes large-scale changes by decomposing the work into independent units, spawning one agent per unit in an isolated git worktree, and opening a pull request for each. Use this when a change is too large for a single session but the units don't depend on each other.

/batch migrate src/ from Solid to React

/loop

Runs a command or prompt repeatedly at a fixed interval (or self-paced if you omit the interval). This is practical for polling deploy status, checking test results, or repeating a task until a condition is met.

/loop 5m check if the deploy finished

/claude-api

Builds, debugs, and optimizes Claude API applications. Includes guidance on prompt caching, token costs, and Anthropic SDK patterns. Useful when working directly with the Anthropic SDK or building Claude integrations.

/claude-api "optimize this prompt for caching"

Invoking Skills

Direct invocation: Type /skill-name with optional arguments:

/simplify src/auth.ts
/debug "TypeError: cannot read property"
/batch "add copyright header" src/**/*.ts

Ask Claude: Describe what you need and Claude uses the relevant skill:

Can you find refactoring opportunities in my recent changes?

Claude chooses /simplify automatically when appropriate.

Custom Skills

Beyond bundled skills, you can create your own in .claude/skills/:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/my-skill

See Extending Claude with Skills in the official documentation for custom skill patterns.

Related

• Permission Modes - Control what runs without prompting
• Slash Commands Reference - All available commands
• Plugins & Skills - Skill activation and orchestration