Building Your AI Agent Army: Practical Examples of Claude Skills
The world of AI is rapidly evolving, and with tools like Claude, we're moving beyond simple prompts to creating sophisticated, specialized AI agents. These "skills" in Claude allow you to automate complex workflows, ensure deterministic results, and significantly boost productivity.
Inspired by Greg Isenberg's insights, let's dive into practical examples of how to build and leverage Claude Skills to create your own AI agent army!
Understanding Claude Skills: Beyond the Prompt
Before we jump into examples, let's briefly recap why Claude Skills are so powerful:
Specialization: Each skill is designed for a very specific task, built with expert-level constraints and guidelines.
Context Efficiency: Unlike broad AI projects, skills only load relevant context for their task, preventing "context rot" and improving accuracy.
Deterministic Results: You can embed functional scripts within skills, ensuring tasks are performed with precise, repeatable steps, not just the LLM's interpretation.
Ready to build? Let's get started!
Example 1: The UTM Link Generator (Using a Preloaded Skill)
One of the simplest ways to start with Claude Skills is by utilizing preloaded ones, like the Artifact Builder. This skill allows you to quickly create functional web apps within Claude.
Goal: Create a tool for marketing teams to easily generate UTM-tracked links.
Steps:
Access the Artifact Builder: Navigate to your Claude workspace and look for the "Artifact Builder" skill. It's often available as a preloaded option.
Specify Your Application: In the chat interface, tell Claude you want to build a "UTM Link Generator."
Define Inputs: Explain what information the generator needs (e.g., "base URL," "campaign source," "campaign medium," "campaign name").
Define Output: Describe how the final UTM link should be formatted.
Test and Refine: Once Claude generates the initial app, test it with various inputs. Provide feedback to refine its functionality.
Result: You'll have a simple, interactive web application right within Claude that can generate perfectly formatted UTM links, ensuring consistent tracking across all your marketing efforts.
Example 2: The AB Test Generator (Custom Skill for Optimization)
This example demonstrates creating a custom skill to drive conversion optimization.
Goal: Automatically generate structured A/B testing ideas for any given webpage.
Steps:
Initiate Skill Creation: In Claude, start a new conversation and state your intention: "Create a skill called 'AB Test Generator'."
Define Input: The skill will need a URL. Specify: "This skill takes a URL as input."
Outline Core Logic:
"First, the skill should scrape the content of the provided URL."
"Then, it should analyze the page for conversion points and common user friction."
"Finally, it should output clear A/B test ideas in a structured format, including a 'Control' (current state), a 'Variant' (proposed change), and suggested 'Headlines' for each."
Provide Example Output (Crucial for Structure):
Control: "Current headline: 'Get Started Today'"
Variant: "New headline: 'Unlock Your Potential Now'"
Hypothesis: "Changing the headline will increase click-through rate by X%."
Refine and Test: Provide sample URLs and review the generated test ideas. Instruct Claude to focus on specific elements (e.g., call-to-action buttons, hero sections).
Result: A custom skill that acts as your personal conversion rate optimization (CRO) assistant, giving you a stream of testable hypotheses to improve your website's performance.
Example 3: The Marketing Insight Agent (For Data Analysis with Precision)
This skill moves beyond text generation to structured data analysis, ensuring accuracy by using scripts.
Goal: Transform raw marketing data into actionable, structured insights.
Steps:
Initiate Skill Creation: "Create a skill called 'Marketing Insight Agent'."
Define Input: "This skill accepts marketing data (e.g., traffic analytics, ad spend, revenue) in a CSV or JSON format."
Specify Analytical Tasks:
"Calculate total ad spend."
"Calculate total revenue."
"Determine net profit."
"Analyze performance by marketing channel (e.g., 'Google Ads', 'Facebook Ads')."
Emphasize Scripted Logic: This is where you might implicitly or explicitly tell Claude to use code/scripts for calculations, rather than just interpreting the data. You'd say something like: "For each calculation, ensure precise mathematical operations are performed on the data, not just general estimations."
Define Output Format: "Output the insights in a clear, bulleted or table format, explicitly stating each metric and its value."
Result: An agent that takes your messy data and, through predefined analytical steps, provides a clean, accurate report on your marketing performance, removing the guesswork often associated with general LLMs.
Example 4: The Tweet to Newsletter Creator (Leveraging Reference Files)
This example highlights creating a skill that transforms short-form content into long-form, maintaining a consistent style.
Goal: Expand a tweet into a comprehensive newsletter article, matching a specific tone and format.
Steps:
Initiate Skill Creation: "Create a skill called 'Tweet to Newsletter Creator' using the Skill Creator skill."
Define Input: "This skill takes a short tweet (text) as its primary input."
Provide Reference Files (Crucial for Style Transfer):
Upload Sample Tweet: Upload an example tweet that represents the kind of input you'll provide.
Upload Sample Newsletter: Upload a fully formatted newsletter that embodies the tone, structure, and length you desire for the output. Tell Claude: "Use this newsletter as a reference for the desired output style, tone, and format."
Outline Transformation Logic: "Expand the core idea of the tweet into a detailed newsletter article. Incorporate relevant context, examples, and a clear call to action, similar to the provided newsletter sample."
Test and Iterate: Feed the skill various tweets and review the generated newsletters. Provide feedback to align the output more closely with your desired style.
Result: A powerful content creation skill that takes a spark of an idea from a tweet and fleshes it out into a ready-to-publish newsletter, saving you hours of writing and editing.