Skills & Plugins in Claude and Cowork
Skills are folders of instructions, and optionally scripts and resources, that Claude loads only when a task needs them. Plugins bundle skills, connectors and sub-agents for a role, such as sales, finance or engineering, into one install. Both work in chat, in Cowork, and in Claude Code.
The earlier version described team "workflows" built with a workspace tool that doesn't exist. Everything below comes from Anthropic's Help Center and docs.
Kinds of skills
- Anthropic skills, such as creating Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files, are available to everyone and used automatically.
- Custom skills you or your organisation write.
- Organisation-provisioned skills (Team and Enterprise): owners push skills to every member, enabled or disabled by default.
- Partner skills in the Skills Directory, from Notion, Figma, Atlassian and others, designed to pair with their connectors.
Skills are on every plan, including Free, and need code execution turned on. They follow the open Agent Skills standard, so the same skill works in other tools that support it, such as Hermes.
Make a skill
Write one: a folder with a SKILL.md giving a clear name and description (this is how Claude decides when to use it), step-by-step instructions, and examples. Good skills do one repeatable job. Upload it under Customize → Skills.
Or record one (Pro, Max and Team; Cowork in Claude for Mac only): Customize → Skills → Add → Record your screen, or "+" → "Record a skill". Do the task while narrating, for up to about 10 minutes. Claude reviews the recording and proposes a new skill, or an update to an existing one, for you to save. Everything on screen and everything you say is captured, so don't show passwords or private conversations.
Plugins
- Open Customize in the sidebar (in Cowork, open the Cowork tab first) → Plugins → Discover.
- Pick a plugin and click Add. Anthropic's library covers sales, finance, legal, marketing, HR, engineering, design, operations and data. Plugin Create helps you build your own.
- Type
/or click "+" to use a plugin's skills and commands.
- Plugins sync to Claude Code (v2.1.273+) when you sign in with your Claude account, where they run in full on your computer: skills, sub-agents, hooks and MCP servers. Opt out with
syncClaudeAiPlugins: false. - Skills sync too. Skills enabled on your claude.ai account are synced to Claude Code in the same way, and since 2.1.293 Claude Code checks for changes about every 40 minutes while no session is in use, instead of every 10. Opt out with
syncClaudeAiSkills: false. - Plugins can include local MCP servers that run with your permissions in Cowork and Claude Code. Only install plugins from sources you trust. Enterprise can scan plugins for malicious content.
- In Cowork, connectors reach services through Anthropic's cloud, so a custom connector must be reachable from the public internet.
Sources: the Claude Help Center — Claude Cowork, What are skills?, How to create custom skills and Use plugins in Claude. Checked 2026-10-09.
← Back to Claude Cowork hub · See also: Official Integrations Database