Canonical Skills

Q: What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Canonical Skills skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Canonical Skills is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the General category. Learn more at https://claudskills.com/learn/what-is-skill-md/.

Category: General · Sub-category: general-misc · Last updated: 2026-06-13

type:audit

Use when setting up a new project, auditing an existing one, or aligning a project so the same project-level skills and agent guide work under Claude Code, Codex, and Pi Agent. Trigger on phrases like "make this project canonical", "set up canonical skills layout", "ensure canonical skills style", "migrate CLAUDE.md to AGENTS.md", "make claude/codex/pi share the same agent guide here", "standardize the agent layout for this repo", or whenever the user opens a fresh project and wants the five project invariants (skills/ real dir, .claude/skills symlink, .agents/skills symlink, AGENTS.md canonical, CLAUDE.md = @AGENTS.md) to hold. Also trigger when the user mentions only one of these symptoms (drifted CLAUDE.md vs AGENTS.md, .claude/skills or .agents/skills as a real directory, multiple skills directories) — the goal is to converge to the canonical shape every time, not just react to the symptom they named.

About this skill (catalog notes)

Canonical Skills includes at least one code block. The SKILL.md runs to about 1,015 words, in the catalog's typical mid-range.

License: MIT
Original author: memorysaver
Indexed lastmod: 2026-06-13
Catalog position: General · general-misc
Indexed related skills: 10

How Canonical Skills fits the catalog

Canonical Skills sits in the General category under the general-misc sub-topic in the ClaudSkills catalog. There are 10 related skills indexed alongside it; comparing a few before installing usually reveals which fits your workflow best.

These notes are auto-generated from features detected in the SKILL.md file and from this catalog's structure — they aren't part of the source repository.

From the source SKILL.md

Apply a single, predictable layout to any project the user works in so Claude Code, Codex, and Pi Agent share one project guide and one project skill source of truth wherever the runtime supports project-local skills. The skill is installed once at the user level (via the dotfiles just link symlink loop) and shows up automatically inside every user-level runtime.

What this skill does

Canonical Skills is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the general-misc sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use when setting up a new project, auditing an existing one, or aligning a project so the same project-level skills and agent guide work under Claude Code, Codex, and Pi Agent. Trigger on phrases like "make this project canonical", "set up canonical skills layout", "ensure canonical skills style", "migrate CLAUDE.

Who uses this skill

The Canonical Skills Claude Code skill is built for Claude Code users and developers across all disciplines looking for general-purpose AI assistance. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 116,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/canonical-skills/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\canonical-skills\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram

Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Frequently asked questions

How do I install the Canonical Skills Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/canonical-skills/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.

What does the Canonical Skills skill do?

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

When should I use the Canonical Skills skill?

Use Canonical Skills when your Claude Code task falls under the General category — specifically in the general misc area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Canonical Skills" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/general/.

What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Canonical Skills skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Canonical Skills is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the General category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.

Attribution & license

Source: https://github.com/memorysaver/dotfiles/blob/5df215148b537b8282894c90a4dcfc3a7dbebc44/agents/skills/canonical-skills/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Author: memorysaver

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

memorysaver. (2026). Canonical Skills [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/canonical-skills/

BibTeX

@misc{canonical-skills-2026,
  author    = {memorysaver},
  title     = {Canonical Skills [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/canonical-skills/}
}

Embed this skill

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Badge

[![ClaudSkills](https://claudskills.com/badge/canonical-skills.svg)](https://claudskills.com/skills/canonical-skills/?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=readme&utm_campaign=skill_badge)

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Browse all General skills → Top 100 skills

Part of ClaudSkills — the open registry for Claude Skills & Claude Code Skills. · What's New · Install guide · About · llms.txt

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