Workshop · TTV Members Only

Claude Skills 101.

Stop re-explaining yourself every session. Build one Skill today that does the work for you — every time, without the brief.

Duration
90 minutes
Format
Live build · Together
You'll Build
The Nugget Finder
Bring
A real transcript
Scroll to begin
Today's run sheet

90 minutes,
four parts.

00:00 — 00:15
Why
Why Claude Skills are so good. The 5x rule.
00:15 — 00:40
What
Anatomy, Plan Mode, and how Skills live inside Cowork.
00:40 — 01:20
How
We build the Nugget Finder Skill together. Live.
01:20 — 01:30
Take Home
Your next Skill. The full menu.
01
Part One
The Why
Why Skills, why now

You stop
re-explaining yourself.

A Skill is a recipe Claude follows every time you trigger it. Write your rules once. Use them forever. Here's why that's such a quiet superpower.

🧠

It remembers the rules

Your tone guide, your framework, your "never do this" list. Loaded every time. You stop being a one-person prompt library.

🔁

It turns work into systems

That one great newsletter? That's now the template. The deliverable becomes the recipe.

📈

It compounds

Your voice guide feeds your hook generator feeds your repurposer. Each Skill makes the next one faster.

🤝

It makes delegation real

The closest thing to handing a task to a team member who actually reads the brief. Every time.

🎯

It's yours

Not a marketplace template. Not someone else's prompt. Built around how you actually work.

It's fast to build

You'll have one done in under 30 minutes today. No code. No setup. Just thinking.

The 5x Rule

If you do something five or more times, regularly — it should be a Skill. Not a saved prompt. Not a sticky note on your monitor. A Skill. Because the third time you re-write that brief, you've lost the morning.

02
Part Two
The What
Clear it up first

Prompts. Projects.
Skills.

Three things that get muddled. Here's the difference, in one breath each.

One-off

Prompt

You ask. It answers. Then it's gone. Great for tinkering. Bad for repeatable work.

Workspace

Project

A folder of context — files, docs, knowledge. Claude reads from it across many chats.

Recipe

Skill

Standing instructions. Triggered by a phrase. Runs the same steps every single time. This is what you want for the work that repeats.

The layout

What's inside
a Skill

Five parts. That's it. Once you can see the shape, you can build one for almost anything.

1
Name
What you call it. Make it boring and descriptive — "Rewrite in My Voice" beats "Voice Wizard 9000."
2
Trigger
The phrase that activates it. "When I paste a transcript and ask to find nuggets…"
3
Instructions
The steps Claude runs through. Short and specific beats long and clever.
4
Reference docs
Files it pulls from — your voice guide, brand kit, framework, examples. The fuel.
5
Output
What "done" looks like. A table? A draft? A list? Define it or you'll get something different every time.
The bit most people skip

Plan in Cowork.
Build in Cowork.

The mistake everyone makes: jumping straight to "write me a Skill that does X." Claude needs you to think first. Open Cowork — where you already set up your folder last workshop — and use the built-in skill-creator to interview you. Five minutes here saves an hour of building the wrong thing.

How it actually goes

Cowork's skill-creator is a meta-Skill that builds other Skills. You describe the outcome. It asks the questions. It packages everything for you. No code. No syntax to learn.

You: Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Nugget Finder. It takes a messy transcript and pulls out the reusable IP.

Skill-creator: What kinds of nuggets matter most? What's the output format? How long are your transcripts usually? What counts as a "good" nugget vs noise? What should it ignore?

You: [answer them, one by one]

Skill-creator: Generates the SKILL.md, runs a test, saves to your Skills folder.

You: Test it on a real transcript. Done.
⚡ Plan first. Build second. Both happen in Cowork.
Where Skills live

Skills + Cowork
= your operating system

Last workshop you set up Cowork. Today, Cowork is also where you build the Skill — using the skill-creator. Once installed, Skills work everywhere Claude does. But Cowork is home base.

🖥️

Cowork = the desk

Your folder. Your files. The workspace where you plan, build, run, and later edit your Skills. The home for the work.

📘

Skills = the playbooks

Built once in Cowork (using the skill-creator), installed via Customize → Skills, then available everywhere — chat, projects, and Cowork itself.

Build it in Cowork → install it once → trigger it from Cowork → edit it back in Cowork when you're ready.
Before you build anything

The four planning
questions

Answer these in your chat with Claude. If you can't answer them, you're not ready to build yet — and that's a good thing to know.

01
What's the end result I actually want?
02
What inputs do I always start with?
03
What rules or reference docs does it need?
04
What does "done" look like?
A quick honest note

Skills cost tokens
and sometimes power

⚖️

Skills load every time they run. The more you stuff in, the more tokens they eat — and complex Skills can sometimes need real compute. The fix is the same as the design rule: keep them lean. One Skill, one job. Short, sharp, specific instructions. Don't try to make one Skill do everything.

03
Part Three
The How — Live Build
We build this together

The Nugget Finder

Experts already have the ideas. They just need reshaping. The Nugget Finder turns your messy transcripts — workshops, calls, voice memos, podcasts — into a library of reusable IP. Quotes. Stories. Insights. The good stuff that usually disappears.

Open Claude. Follow along. We'll plan it in chat first, then wrap it as a Skill. Bring a real transcript — workshop recording, podcast, coaching call, even a long voice memo. If you don't have one, partner up.

The Skill at a glance

Copy this shape into your Plan Mode chat. This is what we're building.

Claude Skill · Nugget Finder
Input Paste a transcript
  • Workshop recording · podcast · coaching call
  • Voice memo · Loom ramble · Zoom transcript
Step 1 Extract nuggets across five categories
💎 Quotable 📖 Stories 🧠 Insights 🎯 Pain points Surprises
Step 2 Score each nugget for content potential
  • High · Medium · Low
Step 3 Tag emotion + theme
Step 4 Return as a structured table
  • Nugget · Category · Emotion · Theme · Potential · Source
Save to your Nugget Library (Cowork folder)
Live build · everyone follow

Build it in
five steps

Raise your hand if you get stuck. We do not move on until everyone is on the same step.

⚙️

Pre-flight check (60 seconds): Settings → Capabilities → make sure Code execution and file creation is toggled ON. Skills won't run without it. If it's already on, you're set.

1

Open Cowork

The same Cowork you set up last workshop. Select your folder. Make sure you're on Opus + Extended thinking.

Home base
2

Call the skill-creator

Two ways to invoke it — pick whichever feels natural:

Option A — slash command: Type /skill-creator and follow the prompts.

Option B — natural language: Paste this:

Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Nugget Finder. It takes a messy transcript (workshop, podcast, coaching call, voice memo) and extracts reusable nuggets across these five categories: Quotable (sentences worth keeping verbatim), Stories (moments and anecdotes), Insights (frameworks and opinions), Pain points (problems and frustrations), and Surprises (contrarian or "huh" moments). Output as a structured table with columns for Nugget, Category, Emotion, Theme, Potential (high/med/low), and Source.
Both work — option B gives more context
3

Answer the interview

The skill-creator asks the questions for you — categories, output format, how to handle long transcripts, what to ignore. Be specific. This is where the Skill gets its quality.

💡 If a question feels confusing, just say use a sensible default and move on. You can refine later.

This is the gold
4

Let it generate, eval, and save

Cowork creates the SKILL.md, runs an evaluation, and saves it straight into your Skills folder. No manual upload needed — Cowork picks it up automatically.

⚠️ Watch for an "Always allow" permission popup — click it so the eval can run. This is normal.

No upload required
5

Test it on a real transcript

In a new Cowork message, type exactly this and paste your transcript after:

Use the Nugget Finder skill on this transcript: [paste transcript here]

Watch your own gold come back. Stories you forgot you told. Phrases you didn't know were quotable.

You're live 🎉

The magic moment: your own words come back as a usable IP library. Stories you forgot you told. Phrases you didn't know were quotable. The stuff that used to disappear.

Half a page · pin this somewhere

Do this.
Don't do this.

✅ Do
  • Start with the end result, not the prompt
  • Build Skills for things you do 5x or more
  • Plan in Cowork. Build in Cowork. Always.
  • Keep instructions short and specific
  • Attach reference docs (voice, brand, frameworks)
  • Test with a real example, not a hypothetical
  • Iterate weekly — refine as you use it
  • One Skill = one job
  • Name it for what it does ("Rewrite in voice")
🚫 Don't
  • Jump straight to writing the Skill
  • Build a Skill for a one-off task
  • Skip the interview to "save time"
  • Stuff every edge case into one Skill
  • Hope Claude "just knows" your style
  • Test it with made-up examples
  • Set and forget
  • Build a Swiss Army knife
  • Name it cleverly ("Voice Wizard 9000")
Make it better over time

Three ways to improve
a Skill

A Skill isn't done when you ship it. It's done when it stops needing your attention. Until then, treat it like a living thing.

Method 01

Run → notice → edit in Cowork

Use it. When something's off, open the Skill back in Cowork and add one specific rule. "Never use em-dashes." "Always end with a question." Tiny fixes compound — and Cowork makes editing easy once you're comfy.

Method 02

Keep a changelog at the bottom

Add a note in the Skill: "v1: original. v2: added emotion tags. v3: stripped corporate phrases." Future you will thank present you.

Method 03

Retire what doesn't pull weight

If you haven't used a Skill in a month, archive it. A small library of Skills you actually use beats a graveyard of Skills you don't.

04
Part Four
Take It Home
Before you leave

Pick your
next Skill

Not three. Not a roadmap. The one Skill you'll build before next workshop. Use the planning questions. Plan it in chat first.

"My next Skill will be…"
The menu

Skill ideas to
build next

Build more · copy these prompts

Five prompts.
Five new Skills.

Each prompt below is ready to paste into Cowork. Same flow as the Nugget Finder — invoke the skill-creator, paste the prompt, answer the interview, save. Five new Skills, one per week, and you've got a system by month's end.

01
Rewrite in My Voice

Turn robotic AI writing into something that actually sounds like you. The catch: it only works if you have a tone & voice guide to attach. Build that first.

Paste into Cowork
Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Rewrite In My Voice. It takes any draft and rewrites it in my voice — using my tone & voice guide as the reference. Common AI patterns to strip out: em-dashes, three-word staccato lists, colon-reveal patterns, "real talk", "delve", "tapestry", "vibrant", poster-quote endings, and triple repetition. Match my rhythm, my vocabulary, and my banned-words list. Ask me about: my voice rules, my preferred sentence length, my sign-off style, and how aggressive the rewrite should be (light edit vs full rewrite).

⚠️ Prereq: a tone & voice guide doc in your Cowork folder. Without it, the Skill has nothing to reference.

02
LinkedIn Hook Creator
⚒ WIP

Generate stronger first lines that earn the scroll-stop. Hooks live or die in the first 8 words — this Skill does the heavy lifting.

Paste into Cowork
Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called LinkedIn Hook Creator. It takes a topic, story, or rough draft and generates 5 LinkedIn hooks across different styles — contrarian, story, stat, question, and pattern-interrupt. Output should rank them by predicted scroll-stop potential. Ask me about my niche, my audience's pain points, and the kinds of hooks I've seen work for me before.

🔧 Still work-in-progress — the hook frameworks need tightening. Build it as v1, then refine using your best-performing posts as training data.

03
Meeting Notes Assistant

Turn a messy transcript or scrappy notes into a clean summary, action list, and deadlines. The Skill that pays for itself within a week.

Paste into Cowork
Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Meeting Notes Assistant. It takes a meeting transcript or messy notes and returns: a 3-sentence summary, a list of decisions made, action items with owners, deadlines, and any open questions. Ask me about my meeting types, my preferred output format, and how to handle missing owners or unclear next steps.

💡 Pairs well with the Nugget Finder — run them in sequence on the same transcript for actions and insights.

04
Inbox Reply Assistant

Draft replies in your voice and tone. Not auto-send — draft, review, send. The hours back per week add up fast.

Paste into Cowork
Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Inbox Reply Assistant. It takes an email I've received and drafts a reply in my voice. Categorise the email first (sales pitch, networking, support, client, internal team) and adjust the reply style accordingly. Match my usual length (short and conversational, not formal), my sign-off style, and my banned-words list (no em-dashes, no "real talk", no "just" as filler). Ask me about: my common email types, my preferred sign-offs, my rules for declining gracefully, and when to use bullet points vs prose.

⚠️ Prereq: same tone & voice guide as Skill 01. Build that doc once — it powers multiple Skills.

05
Complete Form
🚀 Stretch

Generate a proposal or contract draft from a discovery call, prefill the signer fields, and prep it for an e-sign service. The dream Skill for service businesses.

Paste into Cowork
Use the skill-creator to help me build a Skill called Complete Form. It takes notes from a discovery or sales call and generates a proposal/contract draft using my template, prefills signer fields (client name, email, scope, price, dates), and prepares it for review before sending to e-sign. Ask me about my template format, the fields I always need filled, and the format for handing off to e-sign.

🚀 Stretch flag: the e-sign integration step (Adobe Sign, DocuSign, Dropbox Sign) needs API setup — that's a Skills 201 build. Start with v1 that just generates and prefills the doc. Send for signature manually until you're ready to wire up the API.

Take these with you

Everything you need
to keep building

🎓

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