Must-Have Skills for Claude Code

If you are getting started with Claude Code, installing the right skills early can save time and make your workflow much more effective.

This guide rounds up must-have skills for Claude Code, including tools for skill discovery, skill creation, writing, and practical day-to-day development work.

If you’re building with Claude Code, knowing which skills to install from the start makes a huge difference. These are the must-have skills for Claude I reach for on every new project, curated, categorised, and ready to copy-paste.

I’ve organised them by type, not priority. Every section has at least one must-have skills for Claude that belongs in your default setup, so read through and pick what fits your stack.

Skill Discovery & Creation

This is where I always start. Before anything else, these must-have skills for Claude help you find and build the skills you’ll actually need.

find-skills

View on skills.sh

Searches the skills.sh registry to discover and recommend relevant skills based on your current project context or needs.

Best for: When you want to find new skills to install, use it as a meta-skill to discover other skills that could help with your current task or project.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/skills --skill find-skills

skill-creator

View on skills.sh

A skill for creating new skills and iteratively improving them through testing and feedback loops.

Best for: When you want to build a new custom skill to teach the AI agent a new capability, workflow, or set of coding conventions specific to your project.

npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/skills --skill skill-creator

writing-skills

View on skills.sh

Applies Test-Driven Development principles to creating reusable agent skills and process documentation.

Best for: When creating new documentation that teaches techniques, patterns, or reference material to AI agents, with a TDD-style write-test-refine workflow.

npx skills add https://github.com/obra/superpowers --skill writing-skills

Planning & Workflow

These are the must-have skills for Claude when it comes to structuring your work before you write a single line of code.

brainstorming

View on skills.sh

Turns ideas into fully formed designs and specs through natural collaborative dialogue, exploring requirements before implementation.

Best for: When you need to refine an idea into a concrete design before building, helps you avoid wasted work from unexamined assumptions.

npx skills add https://github.com/obra/superpowers --skill brainstorming

writing-plans

View on skills.sh

Writes comprehensive implementation plans with detailed bite-sized tasks, code samples, and testing guidance, assuming zero prior codebase context.

Best for: When you need to create detailed implementation roadmaps for features, especially for complex multi-step work that needs step-by-step guidance.

npx skills add https://github.com/obra/superpowers --skill writing-plans

executing-plans

View on skills.sh

Loads a plan, reviews it critically, executes tasks in batches, and reports back for review between batches.

Best for: When you have a development plan ready and need to implement it methodically with checkpoints and verification steps between each batch.

npx skills add https://github.com/obra/superpowers --skill executing-plans

Design & UI/UX

Good UI output starts with the right context. The must-have skills for Claude in this category give it the design vocabulary it needs to produce production-quality interfaces.

frontend-design

View on skills.sh

Creates distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces that avoid generic AI aesthetics, with meticulous attention to visual and design details.

Best for: When building components, pages, or applications that need bold aesthetic direction and polished, production-ready styling.

npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/skills --skill frontend-design

web-design-guidelines (Vercel)

View on skills.sh

Reviews files for compliance with Vercel’s Web Interface Guidelines, checking against all documented design rules.

Best for: When you need to validate code or design files against Vercel’s web interface standards before deployment.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills --skill web-design-guidelines

web-design-guidelines (antfu)

View on skills.sh

Reviews files for compliance with Anthony Fu’s opinionated web design guidelines for clean, modern web interfaces.

Best for: When you want to audit code files against clean, modern web design standards and conventions.

npx skills add https://github.com/antfu/skills --skill web-design-guidelines

ui-ux-pro-max

View on skills.sh

Comprehensive design guide with 50+ styles, 97 colour palettes, 57 font pairings, 99 UX guidelines, and 25 chart types across 9 technology stacks.

Best for: When designing UI components, selecting typography and colour schemes, building landing pages or dashboards, or implementing accessibility requirements.

npx skills add https://github.com/nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill --skill ui-ux-pro-max

landing-page-design

View on skills.sh

Designs high-converting landing pages with AI-generated visuals and conversion-optimised layouts.

Best for: When creating marketing landing pages that need professional visuals, proven design formulas, and conversion optimisation.

npx skills add https://github.com/inference-sh-9/skills --skill landing-page-design

shadcn-ui

View on skills.sh

Expert guide for building accessible, customisable UI components with shadcn/ui, Radix UI, and Tailwind CSS.

Best for: When setting up shadcn/ui projects, building forms with React Hook Form and Zod validation, or creating accessible component systems.

npx skills add https://github.com/giuseppe-trisciuoglio/developer-kit --skill shadcn-ui

brand-guidelines

View on skills.sh

Provides access to Anthropic’s official brand identity and style resources for consistent visual formatting.

Best for: When you need to apply Anthropic’s corporate branding, colour palettes, typography, and accent colours, to presentations or design projects.

npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/skills --skill brand-guidelines

Frontend Frameworks & Development

vercel-react-best-practices

View on skills.sh

Comprehensive performance optimisation guide for React and Next.js applications with 57 rules across 8 categories, prioritised by impact.

Best for: When creating new React components, implementing data fetching, reviewing code for performance issues, or optimising bundle size.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills --skill vercel-react-best-practices

next-best-practices

View on skills.sh

Best practice rules for writing and reviewing Next.js code, covering 20+ topics including Server Components, async patterns, and error handling.

Best for: When building or reviewing a Next.js application and you want current idiomatic patterns for App Router, server/client component boundaries, and data fetching.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/next-skills --skill next-best-practices

ai-sdk

View on skills.sh

The official AI SDK toolkit from Vercel for building AI-powered applications with support for multiple LLM providers and agent patterns.

Best for: When building applications that integrate language models, create AI agents, or implement chat interfaces with type-safe streaming capabilities.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel/ai --skill ai-sdk

ai-elements

View on skills.sh

A component library built on shadcn/ui providing pre-built components like conversations, messages, and more for AI application development.

Best for: When building AI-native applications that need ready-made UI components for chat interfaces and messaging features.

npx skills add https://github.com/vercel/ai-elements --skill ai-elements

better-auth-best-practices

View on skills.sh

Comprehensive integration guide for Better Auth – a TypeScript-first, framework-agnostic auth framework supporting email/password, OAuth, magic links, passkeys, and more.

Best for: When implementing authentication with Better Auth, configuring session management, database adapters, or security features.

npx skills add https://github.com/better-auth/skills --skill better-auth-best-practices

turborepo

View on skills.sh

Best practices for Turborepo, a build system for JavaScript/TypeScript monorepos that caches task outputs and runs tasks in parallel.

Best for: When managing monorepo projects that need efficient task orchestration, parallelised workflows, and remote caching strategies.

npx skills add https://github.com/antfu/skills --skill turborepo

That’s my current go-to list of must-have skills for Claude.

The honest truth is that Claude Code is only as good as the context you give it. Skills are how you do that at scale. Instead of rewriting the same instructions every project, you install a skill once and Claude just knows what you expect.

This is Part 1. There are more categories to cover (SEO, Browser, Marketing, Content creatin) so Part 2 is coming. If there’s a specific must-have skills for Claude you swear by that didn’t make this list, drop it in the comments. I’m always looking to update this.

And if you’re new to Claude Code and not sure where to start, check out our previous post on Claude Skills 👉 How to setup Claude Skills