Jan 16
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Claude Skills have been out for a few weeks, and there's still a ton of confusion about what they actually are, how they differ from MCP servers, and when you should use one versus the other. In this video, I break down everything you need to know about Claude Skills — what they are, how they compare to MCP servers, custom instructions, Claude Projects, subagents, and slash commands. I'll show you how to find them, evaluate them for safety, install them, and build your own through iteration. The big reveal? Skills use progressive disclosure to save context window space (12% vs MCP's 17%). I demonstrate this with a real Playwright example, showing how a Skill can completely replace an MCP server while using significantly less context. I also walk through my workflow for building Skills — including my YouTube content creation Skills that I've iterated on dozens of times. Plus, I'll show you my Skill Evaluator that scans other Skills for security issues, prompt injections, and malicious code (just like my MCP Evaluator). Bottom line: Skills are easier to build than MCP servers, more composable, portable between Claude Code and Claude Desktop, and way more context-efficient. They're not replacing MCP entirely, but for certain use cases, they're the better choice. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 – Intro: Skills vs MCP Context Showdown Tease 1:01 – What Are Claude Skills? (Clearing Up Confusion) 3:22 – My YouTube Skills Workflow Example 3:51 – MCP Servers Explained & Context Window Problem 4:21 – How Skills Work: Progressive Disclosure 5:08 – Skills Are Portable & Composable 6:05 – Evaluating Skills for Safety (Skill Evaluator Demo) 7:42 – My Custom Skills (MCP Evaluator, PRD Creator, YouTube Skills) 8:02 – Skills Are Simple: Markdown + YAML 8:47 – How to Build Skills (Iteration Process) 9:43 – Skills vs MCP: Playwright Example 10:13 – Installing Skills Manually 11:00 – Context Window Comparison: 12% vs 17% 12:09 – Final Thoughts & Key Takeaways 🔗 RELEVANT LINKS My Skill Eval Skill: https://github.com/JeredBlu/eval-marketplace Claude Skills Documentation → https://github.com/anthropics/skills Book a call with me → https://yedatechs.com/#container06 Sponsorship inquiries → hi@yedatechs.com #ClaudeSkills #MCPServers #ClaudeCode #ClaudeDesktop #AIProductivity #DeveloperTools #Anthropic #ClaudeAI #ProgressiveDisclosure #ContextWindow #AIAgents #PlaywrightSkill #SkillEvaluator #AICoding #AIWorkflow #AIDevelopment #DevTools