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Distill Notes

Category: Content  ·  Sub-category: content-misc  ·  Last updated:
Distill raw notes into a sharp set of standalone maxims — distillation, not summarization. Keeps the vital few, drops 40-60% of ideas, compresses survivors to maxims of 8 words or fewer, promotes the most foundational idea to a headline, and sharpens contrasts into antithesis ("Give problems, not answers") or couplets ("Fewer tasks, bigger impact"). Returns flat, loosely clustered bullets in chat, then asks whether to also save them to a new .md file. Use when the user says "distill these notes", "turn my notes into maxims", "compress this to principles", "boil this down to maxims", or wants raw notes reduced to a vital few transferable principles. Accepts pasted text, a local file path, or an Obsidian note reference. Do NOT use to summarize while keeping all the ideas, to highlight key takeaways inside a note in place, or to build a reusable advisor persona from interview transcripts.
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From the source SKILL.md

Turn raw notes into a distilled set of maxims. This is distillation, not summarization. Drop ideas, compress the survivors, sharpen them.

What this skill does

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

When to invoke it: Use when the user says "distill these notes", "turn my notes into maxims", "compress this to principles", "boil this down to maxims", or wants raw notes reduced to a vital few transferable principles. Accepts pasted text, a local file path, or an Obsidian note reference.

Who uses this skill

The Distill Notes Claude Code skill is built for content creators, marketers, copywriters, SEO professionals, and editorial teams. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 178,000+ 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/distill-notes
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/distill-notes/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/distill-notes/SKILL.md

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

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

Telegram

📱 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 Distill Notes Claude Code skill?
Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/distill-notes/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.
What does the Distill Notes skill do?
Distill raw notes into a sharp set of standalone maxims — distillation, not summarization. Keeps the vital few, drops 40-60% of ideas, compresses survivors to maxims of 8 words or fewer, promotes the most foundational idea to a headline, and sharpens contrasts into antithesis ("Give problems, not answers") or couplets ("Fewer tasks, bigger impact"). Returns flat, loosely clustered bullets in chat, then asks whether to also save them to a new .md file. Use when the user says "distill these notes", "turn my notes into maxims", "compress this to principles", "boil this down to maxims", or wants raw notes reduced to a vital few transferable principles. Accepts pasted text, a local file path, or an Obsidian note reference. Do NOT use to summarize while keeping all the ideas, to highlight key takeaways inside a note in place, or to build a reusable advisor persona from interview transcripts.
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 Distill Notes skill?
Use Distill Notes when your Claude Code task falls under the Content category — specifically in the content 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 Distill Notes" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/content/.
What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Distill Notes 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. Distill Notes is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Content category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.

Attribution & license

Cite this skill

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

APA
jsifalda. (2026). Distill Notes [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/distill-notes/
BibTeX
@misc{distill-notes-2026,
  author    = {jsifalda},
  title     = {Distill Notes [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/distill-notes/}
}

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Browse all Content skills in the ClaudSkills registry, or explore these other picks from the same category:

Browse all Content skills → Top 100 skills
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