Getting Started with Skills: Your First Installation in 60 Seconds

Installing a skill on Claude Code takes three steps: install the sr CLI, search for a skill, and run sr install <skill-id>. The skill downloads as a SKILL.md file into your project’s .claude/ directory, where Claude automatically discovers and uses it.

Your AI assistant just got smarter. Not because of a model update or a new version release, but because you taught it something new.

That’s the promise of skills: modular packages of specialized knowledge that extend what AI assistants like Claude can actually do. Instead of explaining the same Slack API patterns every time you start a new project, you install a skill once and your assistant remembers it forever.

But here’s the catch most people hit immediately: where do you find these skills? And once you find one, how do you actually use it?

That’s exactly what we’re going to solve in the next few minutes. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have installed your first skill and watched Claude use it to do something it couldn’t do before.

Let’s get to it.

What You’ll Need

Before we start, make sure you have:

• Node.js 18 or higher - Check with node --version
• Claude Code (or any AI assistant that supports skills)
• A terminal - Any shell will work

That’s it. No complex setup, no configuration files, no environment variables. Just your terminal and a few minutes.

Step 1: Install the CLI

The Skill Registry CLI is the fastest way to find and install skills. One command gets you up and running:

npm install -g skill-registry-cli

If you prefer pnpm or yarn:

pnpm add -g skill-registry-cli
# or
yarn global add skill-registry-cli

Once the installation completes, verify everything worked:

sr --version

You should see skill-registry v0.1.0 (or a newer version). That little sr command is your new best friend. It’s an alias for skill-registry that saves you from typing the full name every time.

Why “sr”? Because you’ll be using this command a lot, and your fingers will thank you.

Step 2: Search for a Skill

Now comes the fun part. Let’s find a skill to install.

Say you’re building a project that needs Slack integration. Instead of reading through API documentation or asking Claude to figure out the Slack API from scratch, you can search for a skill that already knows how to do it:

sr search slack

The CLI connects to the Skill Registry, searches through the available skills, and displays the results in a clean table:

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  SKILL REGISTRY                     │
│  powered by Autonoma AI             │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Found 1 skill(s) for "slack"

┌─────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ID                      │ Name                    │ Description                                      │
├─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ slack                   │ Slack                   │ Use when you need to control Slack, including    │
│                         │                         │ reacting to messages or pinning/unpinning items. │
└─────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Install a skill with: install <skill-id>

There it is. A skill that teaches your AI assistant how to work with Slack: sending messages, reacting to posts, managing pins, and more.

But wait. Before you install it, you probably want to know what’s actually inside. Smart thinking.

Step 3: Preview Before Installing

The show command lets you inspect a skill without installing it. Think of it as reading the label before buying:

sr show slack

This displays the full skill content right in your terminal:

---
name: slack
description: Use when you need to control Slack from Clawdbot via the slack tool...
---

# Slack Actions

## Overview

Use `slack` to react, manage pins, send/edit/delete messages, and fetch member info.

## Actions

### React to a message

{
  "action": "react",
  "channelId": "C123",
  "messageId": "1712023032.1234",
  "emoji": "check mark"
}

### Send a message

{
  "action": "sendMessage",
  "to": "channel:C123",
  "content": "Hello from Claude"
}

...

Now you know exactly what capabilities this skill provides. It teaches Claude how to:

• React to messages with emoji
• Send, edit, and delete messages
• Pin and unpin important posts
• Fetch member information
• List custom emoji

That’s a lot of functionality packed into a single skill. If this looks useful, let’s install it.

Step 4: Install Your First Skill

Here’s the moment of truth. Installing a skill takes exactly one command:

sr install slack

Watch the CLI work:

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  SKILL REGISTRY                     │
│  powered by Autonoma AI             │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

✓ Installed "slack"

✓ Skill saved to: .claude/slack/SKILL.md

The skill is now available for use with Claude Code.

That’s it. The skill is now installed in your project.

Step 5: Verify the Installation

Let’s make sure everything landed where it should. Check your project’s directory structure:

ls -la .claude/

You’ll see:

drwxr-xr-x  3 user  staff   96 Jan 19 10:30 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 user  staff  256 Jan 19 10:28 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 user  staff   96 Jan 19 10:30 slack

And inside the slack folder:

ls -la .claude/slack/

drwxr-xr-x  3 user  staff   96 Jan 19 10:30 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 user  staff   96 Jan 19 10:30 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 user  staff  1842 Jan 19 10:30 SKILL.md

There’s your skill: .claude/slack/SKILL.md. Claude Code automatically discovers skills in the .claude/ directory and loads them based on context.

Pro tip: You can install multiple skills. Each one gets its own folder under .claude/. They don’t conflict with each other.

Step 6: Use the Skill

Now for the payoff. Open Claude Code and try using the skill you just installed.

Ask Claude something like:

“Send a message to the #engineering channel saying ‘Build completed successfully’”

Claude now knows how to structure that request because it has the Slack skill loaded. It understands the action format, the channel syntax, and the API structure. It’s not guessing anymore. It’s working from a template that’s been tested and refined.

Or try:

“React to the last message in #general with a thumbs up”

Claude will recognize this as a Slack action and use the skill’s documented format to construct the proper request.

This is the power of skills: knowledge that persists across sessions, shared across your team, and refined by the community.

Interactive Mode: A Faster Workflow

Here’s a bonus feature for when you’re exploring. Instead of typing sr search, sr show, and sr install as separate commands, you can enter interactive mode:

sr

This opens a REPL-style interface where you can run commands directly:

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                                                                   ║
║   ███████╗██╗  ██╗██╗██╗     ██╗                                  ║
║   ██╔════╝██║ ██╔╝██║██║     ██║                                  ║
║   ███████╗█████╔╝ ██║██║     ██║                                  ║
║   ╚════██║██╔═██╗ ██║██║     ██║                                  ║
║   ███████║██║  ██╗██║███████╗███████╗                             ║
║   ╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝╚══════╝╚══════╝                             ║
║                                                                   ║
║   ██████╗ ███████╗ ██████╗ ██╗███████╗████████╗██████╗ ██╗   ██╗  ║
║   ██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔════╝ ██║██╔════╝╚══██╔══╝██╔══██╗╚██╗ ██╔╝  ║
║   ██████╔╝█████╗  ██║  ███╗██║███████╗   ██║   ██████╔╝ ╚████╔╝   ║
║   ██╔══██╗██╔══╝  ██║   ██║██║╚════██║   ██║   ██╔══██╗  ╚██╔╝    ║
║   ██║  ██║███████╗╚██████╔╝██║███████║   ██║   ██║  ██║   ██║     ║
║   ╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝╚══════╝   ╚═╝   ╚═╝  ╚═╝   ╚═╝     ║
║                                                                   ║
║                  powered by Autonoma AI                           ║
║                                                                   ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Commands:

  search <query>           Search for skills in the registry
  show <skill-id>          View a skill without installing
  install <skill-id>       Install a skill to your project
  help                     Show this help menu
  clear                    Clear the screen
  exit                     Exit the CLI

Examples:

  > search "slack"
  > show slack
  > install slack

Now you can run commands without the sr prefix:

> search posthog
> show posthog-nextjs-app-router
> install posthog-nextjs-app-router
> exit

This is especially useful when you’re exploring the registry and want to quickly browse multiple skills.

What’s Next?

You’ve installed your first skill. But that’s just the beginning.

Explore the Registry: Browse skillregistry.io to discover skills for tools you already use. PostHog analytics, GitHub workflows, Discord bots, email automation, and dozens more.

Try the Skill Finder: There’s a meta-skill called skill-finder that teaches Claude to automatically search for relevant skills before starting tasks. Install it and Claude will proactively look for skills that match what you’re trying to do:

sr install skill-finder

Create Your Own Skills: Have a workflow that you repeat often? Package it as a skill and share it with the community. Skills are just markdown files with a specific structure. If you can write documentation, you can create a skill.

Stack Multiple Skills: Skills are composable. Install the Slack skill alongside the GitHub skill, and Claude can now coordinate between both platforms. Send a Slack message when a PR is merged. React to messages based on issue status. The combinations are endless.

Quick Reference

Here’s everything you learned, condensed:

Command	What It Does
sr search <query>	Find skills matching your query
sr show <skill-id>	Preview a skill’s content
sr install <skill-id>	Install a skill to .claude/<skill-id>/SKILL.md
sr	Enter interactive mode
sr --help	Show all available commands

The Bigger Picture

Skills represent a shift in how we work with AI assistants. Instead of starting every project from scratch, explaining the same context over and over, you build up a library of knowledge that persists.

Each skill you install makes your assistant a little more capable. Each skill you share helps the community move faster. And the more skills you have, the more patterns your AI assistant can recognize and apply.

That first installation you just completed? It took about 60 seconds. But the time it saves you over the coming months will be measured in hours.

Welcome to the Skill Registry. Now go install something useful.

---

Ready to explore more? Visit skillregistry.io to browse the full catalog of available skills.