Best Claude Skills for Efficiency (2026)
Most "best skills" lists are copied README summaries. This one isn't: we installed all 80 efficiency skills in our catalog, ran each against a baseline and scored four criteria. 36 passed cleanly, average score 8.3/10. The one to start with: Kill Dev Process.
Ranked by SkillProof Score · how we score
- 1
Kill Dev Process
Classifies and safely kills orphaned dev servers/browsers with a hard exclusion list for databases and the IDE.
From our test: Ran the actual step-1 investigation commands on a live dev machine: they surfaced postgres on :5432 and Claude's own IDE Helper node processes mixed in with real dev servers - exactly the kind of…
- 2
Clean Cache
Tiered, confirmation-gated cache cleanup for Flutter/Android/iOS/Node workspaces — verified not to touch lockfiles or source.
From our test: Actually ran the bundled scan-and-delete bash commands against a throwaway workspace with a fake node_modules, android build/, and .dart_tool/: L1 cleanup wiped only the build artifacts and left…
- 3
Agent Prompt Engineering
A five-part checklist (role, paths, deliverables, constraints, comms) for writing sub-agent prompts that need zero follow-up.
From our test: Drafted a spawn prompt for a 3-agent marketing-site redesign both ways: the baseline copy-agent prompt was one vague sentence ('improve the copy'), the skill-directed version had absolute file paths…
- 4
Tidy Skill
Read-only hygiene audits that stop agents littering repos with plan.md/todo.md junk.
From our test: Ran score_repo_hygiene.py on a throwaway repo with plan.md/todo.md/summary.md in root — it returned a real 57/100 'Needs tidy-up' score with a dimension breakdown and named the 3 suspicious files…
- 5
ACM Config
Interactive Q&A that writes a validated ~/.claude/claudikins-acm.conf for the Claudikins context-handoff tool.
From our test: Fully self-contained single-file skill; its real value is enforcing an exact serialization contract (file path, variable names, and a minutes-to-seconds conversion for SNOOZE_DURATION) that the…
- 6
Perfetto Performance Analysis
Perfetto trace analysis with a pinned trace_processor and 235 query graphs
From our test: Bootstrapped its own Perfetto v57.2 trace_processor and verified the binary's SHA-256 against the bundled lock file, then ran startup_analysis end to end on a real 2 MB Android warm-start trace in…
- 7
SkillOpt-Sleep
Offline nightly sleep-cycle that mines past sessions and gates CLAUDE.md/SKILL.md edits.
From our test: Compared a naive direct-rewrite approach against the skill's stage-then-gate-then-adopt flow with backups; reading the actual gate code confirmed the harmful-edit block is implemented exactly as…
- 8
Golang Benchmark
Statistically rigorous Go benchmarking, pprof profiling, and benchstat regression workflow
From our test: Installed Go 1.26.5 and benchstat (installation command from Dependencies worked verbatim) and ran the documented workflow on a real module: naive concatenation vs. strings.Builder, ReportAllocs +…
- 9
Checkpoint
Writes a structured, resumable session-handoff snapshot with file:line pointers and a resume prompt.
From our test: Fetched the repo tree via gh API and read the full SKILL.md at .claude/skills/checkpoint/SKILL.md; verified all 6 cross-referenced files (rules/session-logging.md, plan-first-workflow.md…
- 10
Mcp Client
CLI to list and call tools on any MCP server without loading all schemas into context
From our test: Cloned into a temp HOME, installed mcp+fastmcp in a venv, and ran the client against a real stdio server (@modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking). All three subcommands worked: servers…
How this ranking works
Each skill gets a fresh install in Claude Code, three trigger phrasings, and the same task run with and without it. Scores: installation (5), trigger reliability (5), output vs baseline (10), documentation honesty (5) — normalized to a 10-point SkillProof Score. Full rubric on the methodology page. Queue-verdict skills sit at the bottom until testing completes.
New here? Start with how to install Claude skills — or grab the whole setup in one command with a curated pack ($10).
On a different AI tool? These tested instructions adapt: see our conversion guides for Cursor rules, Copilot instructions, Windsurf and Custom GPTs.