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A skill is a SKILL.md file that gets loaded into Claude Code’s context before a session starts. Each skill contains focused instructions, patterns, and constraints for a particular type of work — writing tests, setting up CI/CD, building auth systems, or designing UI components. Loading a skill is like handing Claude a specialist’s playbook before it touches your code. CCC ships with 450+ skills. Because loading all of them at once would consume roughly 10,000 tokens before a session even begins, CCC uses a tiered loading system to keep your context lean by default.

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Skill tiers

Essential (~37 skills)

Core workflow skills plus all 11 CCC domain routers. Installed by default. Covers the most common tasks without bloating your context window.

Recommended (~100 skills)

Everything in essential, plus high-value skills for code review, testing, agents, and common patterns. For developers who want broader coverage.

Domain (11 routers)

Just the 11 CCC domain router skills. Each router dispatches to specialist sub-skills on demand.

Full (450+)

Every skill in the skills/ directory. Not recommended for most users — use essential or recommended to preserve context budget.
The default install tier is essential. You get all 11 CCC domain routers plus the core workflow skills — roughly 37 skills total — which saves approximately 10,000 tokens compared to loading everything.

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Managing skills

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From the CLI

Use ccc --skills to open the skill management interface:
1

Open skill manager

ccc --skills
2

Choose an action

The skill manager gives you four options: list installed skills, install new ones, remove ones you do not need, and switch your active tier.
3

Install by tier

# Switch to essential tier (default)
ccc --skills tier essential

# Switch to recommended tier
ccc --skills tier recommended

# Install all skills
ccc --skills tier full

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From inside Claude Code

While a session is running, use the in-session skill browser: 
/ccc:skills
This opens an interactive browser where you can search, preview, and load any of the 450+ skills without leaving your session.

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How CCC recommends skills automatically

You do not need to choose a skill manually for every task. Before each dispatch, the Intelligence Layer’s skill recommender scores every available skill against your current task and tech stack: 
  Recommended skills for your project:

  SCORE  SKILL                 WHY
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────
   20    nextjs-app-router     Stack match + keyword
   16    frontend-design       Stack match
   16    shadcn-ui             Stack match
   14    saas-scaffolder       Keyword: auth, billing
   12    tailwind-v4           Stack match
    8    ccc-testing           Always recommended

  ❯ Use top recommendation
    Browse all 450+ skills
    Search by keyword
    Back to main menu
Skills that led to successful sessions in your project accumulate a usage-history boost, so the most useful tools for your specific work rise to the top over time.

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Loading a specific skill manually

To load a skill yourself before dispatching a task, pass it as a system prompt addition or reference it by name in the CCC dispatch flow. From inside Claude Code you can invoke any skill directly: 
/ccc:skills          # Browse and load interactively
You can also load a skill by naming it when you start a dispatch from the main CCC menu — the task context picker will show you relevant skills to include.

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Skill categories

CCC skills span every major area of software development. Here is a sample of what is available:
spec-interviewer, evals-before-specs, writing-plans, executing-plans, systematic-debugging, investigate, confidence-check, four-question-validation, strategic-compact, session-startup
context-mode — 98% context reduction via SQLite + FTS5 tool output sandboxing. caveman — strips markdown and prose for ~75% output token savings. context-budget — visual context window gauge. cache-monitor — session cost and cache efficiency analysis.
ship, review, gstack, codex, design-review, plan-eng-review, plan-ceo-review, retro, document-release, qa, qa-only
subagent-driven-development, dispatching-parallel-agents, multi-agent-swarm, spawn-manager, task-commander, claude-peers-bible, overnight-runner, delegation-templates
setup-deploy, land-and-deploy, using-git-worktrees, github, gh-issues, fleet, status-updates
You can search the full skill catalog from the command line with ccc --list-skills --json | jq '.[] | select(.name | contains("auth"))' to filter by keyword.

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What happens when a skill loads

When a skill is selected for a dispatch — either by recommendation or manually — CCC prepends the contents of that skill’s SKILL.md into the system prompt. Claude Code receives focused, task-specific instructions from the start of the session rather than trying to infer best practices on its own.
Individual skills inside CCC domains are still accessible by their original names. If you know the name of a specific sub-skill, you can load it directly without going through the domain router.