Skill Invocation - Claude Code

Skills can be invoked two ways: explicitly with a slash command, or automatically when Claude recognizes a matching task.

What it does

Type /skillname and Claude runs that skill with its predefined instructions. Or just describe a task in natural language - Claude reads the available skill descriptions and picks one if it matches. The auto-invocation path is why skill frontmatter quality matters so much.

When to use it

• Explicit invocation when you know exactly which skill you want.
• Auto-invocation when you want Claude to pick the right pattern unprompted.
• Mixing both: auto for discovery, explicit for reliability.
• Teaching new teammates - show them the slash command, let auto-invocation do the rest.

Gotchas

• Auto-invocation sometimes picks the wrong skill if descriptions overlap. Be surgical with descriptions.
• Explicit invocation overrides any safety checks in the description heuristics.
• Skills triggered by auto-invocation still respect permission rules and hooks.

Official docs: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills.md