How to Install a Claude Code Skill: Step-by-Step (2026)

You found a skill you want to run. Now what? Installing a Claude Code skill is genuinely a five-minute job — one download, one folder, one rename — but the details matter: get the folder name or the file name slightly wrong and Claude Code will silently ignore the skill, which is where most first installs fail.

Here is the exact process, using the free Atomic Habits skill as the worked example. It costs nothing, so it's the right skill to practice the install on. If you want the background first — what a skill is and why it beats a saved prompt — start with what Claude Code skills are, then come back here.

Step 1: Download the skill file

Go to your account page and click the Download button next to any skill you own. The file downloads as slug-name.md — for the worked example, that's atomic-habits.md in your Downloads folder.

Free skills work the same way: download the Atomic Habits file from its library page and you have everything you need for the rest of this guide.

Step 2: Create the skill directory

Claude Code discovers skills in ~/.claude/skills/, one folder per skill. Open your terminal and create the folder, replacing atomic-habits with your skill's slug:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/atomic-habits

The folder name is not decoration — it has to match the skill's slug, and the skill only loads from this location (or a project-level .claude/skills/ folder, if you want a skill scoped to one project instead of all of them).

Step 3: Move the file in as SKILL.md

This is the step people get wrong. The file inside the folder must be named exactly SKILL.md — not the name it downloaded with:

mv ~/Downloads/atomic-habits.md ~/.claude/skills/atomic-habits/SKILL.md

Leave it named atomic-habits.md inside the folder and nothing happens: no error, no skill. Claude Code looks for SKILL.md specifically.

Step 4: Restart Claude Code

Start or restart Claude Code in any project. Skills are auto-discovered at startup — there is no config file to edit and nothing to register. Skills installed in ~/.claude/skills/ are available across all your projects, so you install each skill once and use it everywhere.

Step 5: Run a command

Type any command from the skill to start. For Atomic Habits, the entry point is:

/habit-scorecard

That command lists your current habits and scores each one — effective, ineffective, or neutral — before you try to change any of them. If the command runs, the install worked and you now know the whole pattern: every other skill installs identically, just with a different slug.

The three mistakes that stop first installs

The file kept its download name. Inside the folder it must be SKILL.md. If a skill "isn't showing up," check this first — it is the cause almost every time.

The folder is in the wrong place. It belongs at ~/.claude/skills/<slug>/ — in your home directory, not inside a project's folder (unless you deliberately want that skill project-scoped).

Claude Code wasn't restarted. Discovery happens at startup. A skill dropped in mid-session won't appear until you relaunch.

One more, for completeness: the folder name and the slug must match. atomic_habits or AtomicHabits is a different folder as far as the loader is concerned.

What to install after the free one

Once the pattern is proven on Atomic Habits, a second install takes about a minute — you already know the three commands. The usual next picks, by job:

• Focus: the Deep Work skill — start with /deep-work-audit to map where last week's attention actually went, then /distraction-audit to find the leaks.
• Negotiation: the Never Split the Difference skill — /calibrated-questions drafts the open-ended questions for your next negotiation, and /ackerman-plan builds the offer sequence.
• Decisions about what to drop: the Essentialism skill — /elimination-audit works through what to cut, and /essential-intent turns what's left into one clear priority.

Our ranked list of the best Claude Code skills covers ten worth installing first, grouped by the job you're hiring them to do.

Each additional skill is $7 one-time. Annual Access unlocks all 43 catalog skills — plus every future release — for $79.99/year, and the honest arithmetic is this: at $7 a single, Annual only pays off once you'd otherwise buy twelve or more titles (eleven singles cost $77; twelve cost $84). One or two jobs to solve? Buy singles. A shelf of frameworks you keep reaching for? Annual is the cheaper shelf.

Start with the free install in front of you: download Atomic Habits, run the three commands above, and type /habit-scorecard. Five minutes from now the "how do I install a skill" question is answered permanently — because you've done it.