Claude Skills FAQ
Here are some frequently asked questions about Claude Skills:
What to do when the skills are not invoking?
If your particular skill is not invoking automatically, you can
1) ask Claude to invoke it explicitly: "Use the .... skill to ...."
2) add a custom instruction to your general user settings or project settings to invoke that particular skill
3) improve the description of the skill and reupload it to Claude
4) temporarily disable the MCP tools that tend to have priority over skills if that causes the issue
What's the difference between using the skills vs the MCP server?
Skills are a more lightweight way to invoke a specific logic or workflow. They are more suitable for high-level tasks and for invoking specific tools and workflows. MCP servers are more comprehensive, offer better control of the tasks, and are better suited for connecting Claude to external tools, databases, and services.
What's the difference between the Claude Skills and ChatGPT Custom GPTs?
Claude Skills are very similar to Custom GPTs, but their advantage is that they are more customizeable, can have a modular structure, and used in different LLM clients.
The main difference, however, is how they are invoked. With Custom GPTs in ChatGPT, you have to explicitly call the Custom GPT, while with Claude Skills, they can be automatically invoked by Claude depending on the context of the conversation. Claude uses so-called "progressive loading" where it first ingests the skill's description and name and only then gets into the detailed description of the skill once it decides to use it.
How many skills should I use?
There's a hard limit of about 20 skills that can be installed in Claude and it's better to stick with this number. Choose your skills carefully and the less you have installed, the better they will be selected by Claude.