Nicolas Cole explains that Claude skills are prompts enhanced with your personal context. Build one by starting with a base prompt, refining outputs through conversation until the AI learns your style, then export the whole thing as a reusable skill that executes your way every time.
A skill is really just running a prompt but with additional context. Let's say I have a prompt for generating ideas. You can run that prompt, but where you would want to take it to with a skill is you run that prompt and then you interact with it and then you talk to AI and you say, "Actually, these are great ideas, but when you present me ideas, I actually prefer it if you give it to me this way." Or, "I prefer if you don't give me analytical ideas, I just want actionable ideas." You're taking the prompt, but you're tailoring it to your personal preferences. For your personal situation. And then the prompt learns and it's like, okay, in this chat, I'm not just executing this prompt, I'm executing this prompt specifically for you. And once you achieve that, once you start getting good outputs, then you export that conversation as a skill. What's really happening in that skill is the skill's going, okay, I understand the prompt that I need to run and I understand that I'm running it for you because you've given it this context in this conversation. That's really where you're trying to get to.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
