Claude skills for everyday work: 6 free ones and how to install them

You keep typing the same instructions into Claude. "Format these notes with decisions and action items." "Summarise this paper, then list what it does not prove." A Claude skill saves you that. It is a folder with a SKILL.md file that teaches Claude one job. You install it once, and Claude loads it on its own when your request matches the job.

This post shows how to install a skill, then six free skills that cover jobs most people do every week. Every one is open source, keeps its author's name and licence, and you can read the full file before you install it.

What a skill is, in one paragraph

A skill is plain text. The top of SKILL.md has a name and a description; the body has the steps. Claude reads only the description until a request matches it, then reads the rest. That is why you can keep several skills switched on without stuffing every chat with instructions. Anthropic's own docs call this "progressive disclosure" — see Agent Skills in the Claude docs.

How to install a skill (about two minutes)

1. Open the skill's page on AgentAlley and download the .md file.
2. In Claude on the web or desktop app, go to Customize → Skills → Add → Upload skill, pick the file and save.
3. Check the toggle next to the skill is on.
4. Start a new chat and ask for the job in plain words. You do not need to name the skill.

In Claude Code, a skill is a folder in ~/.claude/skills/<name>/. Some skills ship extra files next to SKILL.md; the Claude Code line on each skill page copies the whole folder. The step-by-step with screenshots is in How to install a skill.

ChatGPT has no skill upload. The closest thing is a Project: paste the skill into the project's instructions and every chat in that project follows it.

Six skills for jobs you already do

1. Clean meeting notes: meeting-notes

meeting-notes turns a messy dump of notes into a fixed shape: header, agenda, decisions made, action items, discussion, open questions and next steps. It also has variants for 1:1s and other meeting types. Paste your raw notes or a transcript and ask for meeting notes.

2. Summarise research without losing the citations: research-summarizer

research-summarizer is written for non-developers. It has three workflows: summarise one source, compare several sources, or pull out the citations. Give it a paper, a report or a long article.

3. Get through your inbox: inbox-triage

inbox-triage sorts recent email into categories, looks up unknown senders and writes reply drafts. Two things to know before you install it. It depends on a companion skill, inbox-setup, that builds the knowledge base it reads. And it is drafts-only by design: the file says it never sends anything. You also need Claude connected to your email.

4. Make AI text sound like a person: content-humanizer

content-humanizer has three modes: detect the patterns that make text read as machine-written, rewrite to remove them, and add a brand voice. Run it on anything you drafted with AI before it goes out under your name.

5. Turn a YouTube video into text: youtube-transcript

youtube-transcript downloads the transcript of a video you give it. It prefers the creator's own subtitles, falls back to auto-generated ones, and only then offers local Whisper transcription — after showing you the file size and asking first. It runs yt-dlp on your machine, so this one is for Claude Code, not the chat app.

6. Write a cold email that sounds like a peer: cold-email

cold-email asks who you are writing to, what you want, and what proof you have before it writes. Its "what to avoid" list is worth reading on its own: no "I hope this email finds you well", no fake "Re:" subject lines, no 30-minute call in the first email. There is a full walkthrough in How to write a cold email with AI.

How to pick skills without slowing Claude down

• Install for jobs you repeat weekly. A skill for something you do once a year is clutter.
• Read the description line first. That line decides when Claude picks the skill up. If it is vague, the skill will fire at the wrong time or never.
• Read the whole file before installing. Some skills call scripts, need a connector, or need another skill. The skill page shows the full source for that reason.
• Turn off what you stopped using. Fewer active skills means fewer wrong picks.

Where to find more

Browse all Claude skills by the job you need done, or search the shelf for the task in plain words. If a skill you need does not exist yet, add it to the wanted list.