Skills.
A skill is a small file of instructions that teaches your AI to do one job well, your way, every time. These are ones we actually use. Take them, change them, make them yours.
Using one takes a minute
Skills run natively anywhere Claude does: Cowork, claude.ai, and Claude Code. The instructions inside work in ChatGPT and Gemini too. Pick a skill below, read it, then set it up your way:
In Cowork or claude.ai
Save the copied text as SKILL.md (or grab the zip where offered), then go to Customize → Skills → upload. That's it.
In Claude Code
Paste it into a new file: ~/.claude/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md and start a new session. It's live.
In ChatGPT or Gemini
The auto-loading is a Claude thing, but the instructions inside a skill are just plain prompt. Drop the text into a ChatGPT Custom GPT or Project, or a Gemini Gem, and it runs every time. Paste it at the top of a one-off chat for a quick go. You lose the automatic trigger, you keep the recipe.
Skills from the Shed
Every card has a risk bar: the fewer segments lit, the less of your machine the skill can touch. Low risk means quick to verify, not safe to skip reading.
The challenging advisor
Disagrees with you on purpose, so you think harder.
Best for: Anyone whose AI tells them every idea is brilliant. Which is everyone.
Touches nothing. Pure instructions, and that's the best score on this bar.
Copy clean
Strips the AI tells out of your writing so it sounds like you.
Best for: Anyone who drafts with AI and doesn't want readers to notice.
reads: files you point it at · writes: edits, shown for your approval
Weekly review
A Friday loop that looks at how you actually worked, then tells you what to systematise.
Best for: Operators who keep doing the same thing by hand and haven't noticed yet.
reads: your project folders + session history · writes: one report file
Self-healing
A tune-up that measures what your AI setup costs, then makes it cheaper without making it worse.
Best for: Anyone whose skills and automations have grown faster than they've been pruned.
reads: your skills, agents and recent session history · writes: skill edits, each shown for approval
Strict code review
An unusually tough second pair of eyes on what you build.
Best for: Builders who suspect 'it works' is not the same as 'it's good'.
reads: your branch's changes
Magnetic influence
A negotiation and influence coach built on Tim Castle's MAGNETIC framework. Scores your draft or deal against eight principles, then hands you the line to say.
By Tim Castle · the bookBest for: Preparing a negotiation, pitch, pricing conversation or high-stakes email. Pairs with the book.
Touches nothing. Pure instructions, and that's the best score on this bar.
Multi-file skill: upload the zip straight into Cowork or claude.ai (Customize → Skills), or unzip into ~/.claude/skills/ for Claude Code.
Worth knowing about
Superpowers
↗Process discipline for agents: brainstorm before building, debug systematically, test first. The habits, installed.
skills.sh
↗A searchable registry of published skills. Read the code before you install anything, always.
Claude Code skills docs
↗How skills actually work under the hood. Ten minutes here and the whole pattern clicks.
Build your own
Build your own in three steps
- 01 Copy the template below into a new file:
~/.claude/skills/your-skill-name/SKILL.md - 02 Fill it in. Plain English works. Write it like you'd brief a sharp new colleague.
- 03 Start a new session and use it. If it doesn't behave, sharpen the wording and go again.
Built something useful?
Bring it to the next Shed and show it, or email it to hello@bristolaished.com. If it's good, it goes up here with your name on it. That's the whole deal: take what's useful, share the next thing.