I tried 30. Five stayed. Here's what each one actually does, and the exact command to install it.
I pay for Claude every month, and for the first month I mostly used it like a smarter autocomplete. Then a friend showed me one skill that wrote my App Store screenshots in ten minutes. A job that used to eat my afternoon.
I went looking for more, and I tried about 30 of them. Most of them were just a prompt with a fancy name. Five stayed. Here's what each one actually does, what I used it for, and the exact command to install it.
These will help you:
- Write App Store screenshots without losing an afternoon
- Review your own code before anyone else has to
- Test a feature in a real browser, not just in your head
- Turn a messy PDF into something you can actually use
- Build a simple page without starting from a blank file
A quick note before we start. A Claude skill is a saved set of instructions Claude follows for one job. You install it once, then you call it by name. If a skill saves you less time than it takes to install it, delete it. I deleted 25 of them for exactly that reason.
1. The screenshots skill
A skill that writes App Store screenshots from your app, in your words, in ten minutes.
I used to spend a whole afternoon on screenshots. Open the app, take the shot, write the line, rewrite the line, ask a friend, rewrite it again. It was the most boring part of a launch, and it mattered, because it's the first thing anyone sees.
Now I give Claude the app, the features, and the tone I want, and it drafts all of them. I still edit every line, because it's my app and I know what it does better than a model does. But editing ten drafts takes ten minutes. Writing them from nothing took an afternoon.
The job I gave it last: the Peekaboo launch screenshots. It wrote the first draft, I changed about half the words, and we shipped that day. Before, that job would have eaten my whole afternoon.
Install it: in Claude Code, run /plugin install frontend-design@claude-plugins-official. Then tell Claude what your app does, in plain English, and ask for the screenshots.
How it pays: one afternoon back, every launch. I launch a lot, so that adds up fast.
Price: free, if you already pay for Claude. No extra charge for the skill itself.
Privacy: runs in your Claude session. Don't paste secrets into it, obviously. I never paste API keys or passwords into any skill.
2. The code review skill
A skill that reviews your code like a grumpy teammate, before a real teammate has to.
I write code alone most days. There's nobody to catch the stupid mistake. I once shipped a bug where a button did nothing, because I'd renamed the function and forgotten the button. It sat there for a week. A user found it, not me.
Now I run a review skill before I commit anything big. It reads the change, tells me what's wrong, and I fix it before anyone sees it. It catches the renamed-function mistake every time. It also catches the ones I didn't think of, like a timer that never stops, or a file that never gets closed.
The job I gave it last: a Notchy change to the timer view. It flagged a timer that kept running after the window closed. I would have shipped that. It would have drained battery for a week.
Install it: in Claude Code, run /plugin install code-review@claude-plugins-official. Then ask Claude to review your change before you commit.
How it pays: one bug not shipped is worth more than an hour saved. A bug in production costs me support replies, a fix, and a release. A review costs me five minutes.
Price: free, if you already pay for Claude.
Privacy: runs in your Claude session. Your code stays in your session, don't paste anything you wouldn't show a teammate.
3. The browser test skill
A skill that opens your feature in a real browser and clicks it, so you don't have to pretend you tested it.
I used to "test" a feature by looking at the code and thinking, "Yeah, that should work." Then a user would click the button and nothing would happen, because I'd never actually clicked it myself.
This skill opens a browser, goes to the page, clicks the button, and tells me what happened. It takes a screenshot when it breaks, so I can see it. It's the closest thing I have to a teammate who actually uses the app.
The job I gave it last: the Peekaboo cleanup view. It clicked Trash, then Undo, then Trash again, and found a case where Undo didn't bring back the right file. I fixed it before anyone else saw it.
Install it: Playwright is an MCP server, not a plugin, so there is no playwright plugin to install. In Claude Code, run claude mcp add playwright npx @playwright/mcp@latest. Then ask Claude to open your page and test the feature, step by step.
How it pays: one real test beats ten "that should work"s. It saves me the support reply, the apology, and the hotfix.
Price: free, if you already pay for Claude. Playwright itself is free and open source.
Privacy: runs on your Mac, in a local browser. Nothing uploaded, except what you tell it to open.
4. The PDF skill
A skill that reads a PDF and gives you back the parts that matter, without you reading 40 pages.
I get PDFs all the time. Invoices, reports, terms, a 40-page thing someone sent me that I need three numbers from. I used to read the whole thing, or worse, not read it at all and hope the numbers didn't matter.
This skill reads the PDF, pulls out the tables and the numbers, and tells me what changed. I still check the numbers, because I don't trust a model with money. But I check three numbers now, not 40 pages.
The job I gave it last: a monthly report from a payment provider. It pulled out the total, the fees, and the one charge I didn't recognise. That charge was a mistake, and I got it back.
Install it: no extra install is needed — Claude Code reads PDFs natively. Just give Claude the PDF and ask for the numbers, not a summary.
How it pays: 40 pages down to three numbers. That's an hour back, every month, and one wrong charge caught.
Price: free, if you already pay for Claude.
Privacy: runs in your Claude session. Don't paste a PDF with passwords or private data into it. I check what's in a PDF before I hand it over.
5. The page builder skill — and the watcher I built myself
A skill that builds a simple page from a description, and a notch app that tells me when my AI limit is about to run out.
The fifth one is really two things, because the second one saved me more times than the first.
The page builder: I need a landing page, a pricing page, a changelog. I used to start from a blank file, which is the worst place to start anything. Now I describe the page, Claude builds the first draft, and I edit it. It's not beautiful on the first try. It's a start, and a start is the hard part.
Install it: in Claude Code, run /plugin install frontend-design@claude-plugins-official. Then describe the page you want, in plain English, and ask for the first draft.
Now the watcher, because this one is mine.
Notchy shows my AI usage from the notch, so a long Claude session doesn't die halfway through a refactor.
Full disclosure, I built this one.
You're deep in a refactor, the agent is halfway through, and then: limit reached. See you in a few hours. That happened to me twice, and the second time I was so angry I built the fix into Notchy instead of just complaining about it.
Notchy has an AI usage view. I check it before I start anything big, not after it runs out. It sits in the notch, next to Now Playing and my timers, so I see it without opening anything. If I'm at 80% and the job is big, I do the small job first, or I wait. That's it. No drama, no dead session.
Try it today: check your usage before your next long session, not after it runs out. Done when you know the number before you start, not when Claude tells you it's over.
Price: €14.99 one-time until Nov 30, then €24.99. 7-day free trial. No subscription.
System requirements: MacBook with a notch, macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon.
Checkout here: https://notchy.dev
Privacy: runs on your Mac, nothing uploaded. No account needed for the trial.
The two habits that cost nothing
Two things I do with every skill, and they cost nothing.
First, a short prompt. Tell Claude what the job is, in one sentence, and what "done" looks like. "Write the screenshots, five of them, in my voice, and stop when they're ready to edit." If you don't say what done looks like, it will keep going forever.
Second, a five-minute review. Before I trust a skill's output, I read it. All of it. A skill that saves you an hour and ships a mistake costs you a day. I learned that the hard way, with a pricing page that had the wrong price on it for a week.
The takeaway
I've made a good amount of money using Claude skills. Some of it directly, some of it because a skill saved me hours that I then spent on stuff that actually pays. The five above are the ones that stayed, out of 30 I tried. The other 25 are deleted, and I don't miss them.
Install one skill today, not five. Tell me which one, and what job you gave it. If it wasted your time, tell me that too.
Which one are you installing first? Tell me in the comments. I read every reply.
I'm Vishva. I make Notchy, a Dynamic Island for your Mac, and Peekaboo, a Mac app for finding files in plain English and freeing space with undo. I write about Mac apps and AI tools that actually save time. Follow if you want the next list.
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