SkillProof field-tested skills for Claude

How to Install Claude Skills: Claude Code, Desktop & Projects (2026)

July 4, 2026 · SkillProof test team · 3 min read

Installing a Claude skill takes under a minute when you know the paths. This guide covers every install method, the difference between global and project scope, and the three reasons skills silently fail to work.

Method 1: copy the folder (works for everything)

Every skill is a folder with a SKILL.md inside. The universal install:

git clone <repo-url>
cp -r <repo>/<skill-folder> ~/.claude/skills/

Restart Claude Code and the skill is live in every project. For Anthropic’s official skills, for example:

git clone https://github.com/anthropics/skills
cp -r skills/document-skills/docx ~/.claude/skills/

Every listing in our directory shows this command pre-filled with the right paths — with a copy button.

Global vs. project install

  • ~/.claude/skills/ — global. The skill works everywhere. Right choice for general-purpose skills: documents, writing, debugging discipline.
  • <project>/.claude/skills/ — project-scoped. Only active inside that repository. Right choice for skills encoding team conventions, or anything with project-specific config. Project skills also travel with the repo — teammates get them on clone.

When the same skill exists in both places, the project version wins.

Method 2: plugin marketplaces

Some skill authors distribute via Claude Code’s plugin system, which handles updates for you:

/plugin marketplace add <owner>/<marketplace-repo>
/plugin install <plugin-name>

The Superpowers collection (home of Test-Driven Development, scored 9.6/10 in our tests) installs this way. Plugin distribution is a good trust signal — it means the author maintains release discipline.

Method 3: the official in-product directory

Claude’s built-in directory (Customize → Skills → Browse) installs curated skills in one click. It’s the easiest path but covers a fraction of the ecosystem — community skills mostly live on GitHub, which is why our crawler sweeps it every 12 hours.

Why your skill isn’t working: the big three

1. It’s in the wrong directory. Check the exact path: ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md. A common mistake is nesting one folder too deep (skills/skill-name/skill-name/SKILL.md).

2. Claude wasn’t restarted. Skills are scanned at startup. New installs need a restart to register.

3. The trigger description is weak. Claude decides whether to activate a skill by reading its frontmatter description. Badly written descriptions never fire. This is an author-side bug — and one of the four criteria in our scoring. Skills with a “Triggers reliably” score of 5/5 activate when they should; anything lower, read our test notes for the workaround.

Uninstalling

Delete the folder, restart Claude. Nothing else to clean up — skills don’t touch system state.

Install order matters less than you think

A frequent question: do skills conflict? Rarely — they activate on different tasks. The exception is same-domain overlap (two code-review skills, two writing-style skills), where triggering becomes unpredictable. Our role collections are curated to be conflict-free, and each paid bundle ships a config verified to chain together.