Installing Skills on Claude
Claude supports Agent Skills natively everywhere: Claude Chat on the web, the Chat tab in the Claude app, Cowork, and Claude Code. There are two ways to add them, and both are managed from Customize in the left sidebar.
Before you start: click Customize. If you see a Plugins tab, you can install plugins (paid plans). If you only see Skills, use the ZIP upload — it works on every plan, including Free.
Install a plugin (recommended on paid plans)
Section titled “Install a plugin (recommended on paid plans)”A plugin bundles a set of skills so you install them once. Customize → Plugins → + → Add marketplace → Add from a repository, paste the marketplace address (for the Hands-on AI plugin: jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins), click Sync, then Install on the plugin card.
Skills from a plugin work in Claude Chat on the web, the Chat tab in the Claude app, and Cowork. Hooks and sub-agents (like the framework-agent orchestrator) run only in Cowork.
→ Use plugins in Claude (official Anthropic docs)
Upload a skill ZIP (every plan)
Section titled “Upload a skill ZIP (every plan)”Customize → Skills → + → Create skill → Upload a skill, then choose the .zip — don’t unzip it first. Turn the skill on in the list. Requires Code execution to be on under Settings → Capabilities. Uploaded skills appear in both Chat and Cowork on your account.
→ Use skills in Claude (official Anthropic docs)
→ Step-by-step for the framework skills, with screenshots: Set Up the Skills — Claude
Claude Code
Section titled “Claude Code”Install a plugin from a marketplace, or drop skill folders into .claude/skills/:
/plugin marketplace add <owner>/<repo>/plugin install <plugin>@<marketplace>→ Skills in Claude Code (official Anthropic docs)
Related
Section titled “Related”- Skills building block — what skills are and how they work
- AI Workflow Framework skills setup — step-by-step setup for the seven framework skills
- How to Discover Your Best Agent Skills — find your highest-value skill candidates