Claude Code Skills and OpenCode Integration
Introduction to Claude's Code Skills
What Are Skills?
Think of Claude's skills as specialized playbooks. When faced with a familiar type of task, Claude can pull out the right playbook and follow its instructions to get the job done correctly and consistently every time.
Claude Skills are structured capability modules that teach Claude how to carry out a task in a predictable, repeatable way.
The goal is to move beyond general instructions and give Claude a precise, repeatable workflow for common jobs. This is especially useful when you need a task done in a very specific way, following a set of established rules or standards.
Create a skill when you've figured out how you want a task done and want Claude to follow that approach consistently.
For example, you could have a skill for generating commit messages in your team's required format or another for summarizing user feedback according to a specific template. Instead of explaining the rules from scratch each time, Claude just uses the skill.
How Skills Work
A skill is more than just a prompt. It’s a structured set of instructions and resources that Claude can access when needed.
Skills are folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude discovers and loads dynamically when relevant to a task.
The key here is "dynamically." Claude doesn’t try to memorize every single skill it has access to at all times. That would be incredibly inefficient.
Claude doesn't load every Skill at once (which would overwhelm its working memory, like reading every SOP manual simultaneously). Instead, it reads a short description of each available Skill at startup, then loads the full instructions only when that Skill is relevant to the current task.
This clever approach is called progressive disclosure. Claude first scans a brief summary of each skill to understand what it does. Only when your request matches a skill's purpose does it load the full details. This keeps the process fast and relevant.
The best part is that this process is automatic. You don't need to tell Claude which skill to use.
Claude will automatically detect and apply the right Skills without manual toggling; you’ll even see which ones were used in its “chain of thought.”
Built-In Skills
Anthropic provides a set of powerful, pre-built skills that come standard with Claude. These foundational skills handle common digital tasks, giving Claude the ability to interact with files and the web.
| Skill Name | Description |
|---|---|
web_search | Allows Claude to search the web to find up-to-date, relevant information. |
file_operations | Enables Claude to read, write, and modify files in its working environment. |
calendar | Gives Claude the ability to interact with calendar events and schedules. |
These built-in skills form a base layer of capability. For instance, when you ask Claude to summarize a recent news article, it automatically uses the web_search skill to find the article before analyzing it. If you upload a document and ask for a summary, it uses file_operations to read the file first. These skills work together, giving Claude the tools it needs to tackle more complex, multi-step problems.
What is the primary purpose of a Claude skill?
The process where Claude first scans a brief summary of a skill before loading its full details is called:
By providing structured, reusable instructions, skills make Claude a more reliable and efficient assistant for a wide range of tasks.