Your First Skill

Let's use the Brainstorm skill to see how skills work in practice. This tutorial takes about 10 minutes.

What You'll Experience

The Brainstorm skill demonstrates key skill concepts:

• Structured workflow — Guided session start, middle, and end
• Collaborative partnership — Claude pushes back and asks hard questions
• Versioned documents — Your ideas are captured and organized
• Session continuity — Pick up where you left off days or weeks later

Before You Start

Make sure you have:

• Skills installed (Claude Code or Claude.ai)
• A topic you'd like to brainstorm (or use our example)

Step 1: Start a Session

Begin by telling Claude you want to brainstorm:

Let's brainstorm ideas for a productivity app for remote workers.

Claude will recognize this matches the Brainstorm skill and begin the structured workflow.

Step 2: Answer the Setup Questions

Claude will ask several questions to configure the session:

New or Continuing?

Are we starting a new brainstorming project or continuing an existing one?

Answer: New (for this tutorial)

Session Energy

Deep exploration today or quick progress?

Choose based on your available time:

• Deep exploration — More questions, more methods, thorough analysis
• Quick progress — Focused, efficient, fewer tangents

Mode Selection

Connected mode or clean-slate mode?

• Connected mode — Claude surfaces connections to your other work
• Clean-slate mode — Fresh thinking without prior context

For this tutorial, either works.

Context Confirmation

Claude will confirm the brainstorming context:

It sounds like you're wanting to brainstorm a new software product. Does that sound right?

Confirm or clarify as needed.

Step 3: Brainstorm

Now the real work begins. Notice how Claude:

Asks probing questions:

"Who specifically is the target user? A freelancer working from coffee shops
or a corporate employee in a home office?"

Suggests frameworks when helpful:

"We're generating lots of ideas—want to try affinity grouping to organize them?"

Pushes back on weak reasoning:

"I'm not convinced that feature solves the core problem. Here's why..."

Marks decision points:

"This feels like a decision point. Should we log: 'Target user is freelancers
with variable schedules'?"

Step 4: End the Session

When you're ready to wrap up, say:

Let's wrap up for today.

Claude will provide:

Exit Summary

A crisp recap of:

• Current state of the project
• Key decisions made (with reasoning)
• Open questions remaining
• Suggested next steps

The Overnight Test

"What question should you sit with before our next session?"

A thought-provoking question to percolate between sessions.

Version Document

Claude creates a versioned document (v1) capturing everything from the session:

# Productivity App - v1

## Quick Context

Brainstorming a productivity app for remote freelancers...

## Session Log

- Date: 2024-01-15
- Duration: 45 min
- Energy: Deep exploration
- Mode: Clean-slate
- Methods used: Free association, SCAMPER

## Current Thinking

[The substance of where things stand]

## Ideas Inventory

### Developing

- Flexible time blocking that adapts to energy levels
- Integration with freelance platforms for project-aware scheduling

### Raw

- AI-powered focus mode
- Social accountability features

## Decisions Made

1. Target user is freelancers with variable schedules
   - Reasoning: Corporate remote workers already have Teams/Slack...

## Open Questions

- How to handle timezone complexity?
- Native app vs. web-first?

## Next Steps

1. Research existing solutions for freelancers
2. Interview 3-5 freelancers about pain points

Step 5: Continue Later

Days or weeks later, return and say:

Let's continue brainstorming the productivity app.

Claude will ask for the latest version file. Provide it, and the session picks up exactly where you left off—with full context of previous decisions, open questions, and ideas.

What You Learned

In this tutorial, you experienced:

Next Steps

Now that you've experienced a skill in action:

• :octicons-arrow-right-24: Explore the Brainstorm skill — Full documentation
• :octicons-arrow-right-24: Browse all skills — Find skills for your needs
• :octicons-arrow-right-24: Learn about pipelines — Skills that work together