Claude Code Skills examples: 7 workflows worth building

Claude Code Skills become useful when they encode a workflow you repeat, not when they simply rename a long prompt. The best examples have a clear input, a bounded process, and a check that tells you whether the result is trustworthy.

This page gives you seven Skills you can adapt to a real repository. For the concepts and file structure first, read the Claude Code Skills guide.

1. Code review Skill

Use this when you want the same security, correctness, and maintainability checks on every diff.

---
description: Review the current diff for correctness, security, regressions, and missing tests.
---
 
1. Read git status and the complete diff.
2. Identify the behavior changed and its trust boundaries.
3. Check validation, authorization, error paths, and tests.
4. Report findings by severity with file and line references.
5. Do not edit files or commit changes.

This is a good first Skill because it is read-only by default and produces a concrete report.

2. Branch-readiness Skill

A branch-readiness Skill answers one question: what is still missing before this change can ship?

---
description: Check whether the current branch is ready to ship and return a punch list.
---
 
1. Read git status and the diff against the base branch.
2. Check tests, type-check, lint, build, and relevant CI files.
3. Look for missing environment variables, migrations, or documentation.
4. Separate DONE, MISSING, and RISKS.

Keep it diagnostic. A readiness Skill should not push or deploy unless that behavior is explicitly part of its contract.

3. Debugging Skill

The debugging version should force a cause-first workflow instead of jumping straight to edits.

---
description: Find and prove the root cause of a bug before changing code.
---
 
1. Reproduce the reported behavior.
2. Trace the request from entry point to failing boundary.
3. Compare expected and actual state.
4. State the root cause and the smallest fix.
5. Stop and ask for approval before editing.

This prevents a common failure mode: fixing the visible symptom while leaving the broken invariant in place.

4. Documentation Skill

Use a documentation Skill when a project has a stable explanation pattern for APIs, setup, or architecture. Ask it to read the implementation first, then update only the relevant document. Include a rule that examples must match the current code and that secrets, internal URLs, and private data must never be copied into the result.

5. QA Skill

A QA Skill can turn the same smoke-test checklist into a repeatable command. Give it the critical routes, expected states, viewport sizes, and console-error rules. Keep destructive actions out of the default path. For a public site, the checklist should include direct navigation, internal clicks, mobile layout, metadata, sitemap URLs, and soft-404 detection.

6. Release checklist Skill

This Skill should verify rather than improvise. It can check the version, changelog, working tree, build artifact, migrations, health endpoint, and rollback notes. Put deployment or push actions behind a separate explicit Skill so a checklist never becomes an accidental release command.

7. Repository onboarding Skill

An onboarding Skill is useful for a large or unfamiliar codebase. It should produce a short map of the architecture, important commands, data boundaries, authentication flow, and high-risk areas. It should cite files instead of inventing a generic summary.

How to choose your first example

Start with the workflow you repeat at least once a week and can verify with local evidence. Code review, debugging, and branch readiness usually beat an ambitious autonomous “build a feature” Skill. Once the first Skill is reliable, split other workflows into focused commands rather than adding more sections to the same file.

For a ready-made baseline, use the Claude Code Skills Starter Kit, then adapt each Skill to your repository's actual rules.