Applied AI: Building Claude Code Skills

Course details

Automating repetitive workflows with Claude Code requires a different approach than traditional prompt engineering. In this course, discover context-engineering principles and learn how to build reusable Claude Code Skills that package common tasks into reliable, repeatable automations. Join AI engineer and instructor Lucas Soares as he walks you through extracting structured data from PDFs, processing spreadsheets programmatically, and generating customized slide decks using specific frameworks and animation patterns. Along the way, learn how to organize your skills with proper metadata and directory structures to keep your work maintainable and scalable.

Concepts

Introduction

Creating practical Claude Code Skills

Building a Spreadsheet Skill

Introduction to Claude Code Skills
Scaffold a basic skill directory
Process user intent
Produce structured spreadsheet outputs
Test the skill against multiple spreadsheet tasks

Building a PDF Extraction and Transformation Skill

Extract structured data from PDFs
Merge and split PDFs
Generate branded PDF documents
Handle PDF forms
Manage ambiguous PDF layouts

Context Engineering in PowerPoint Skill

Generates slide decks from source material
Edits existing presentations
Maintains consistent tone and structure
Control how much context is injected per request

Create a Document Authoring Skill

Read and edit Word docs with a docx skill
Create and edit formatting rules
Work with comments
Build a doc cheat sheet generator skill

Formalizing What You ve Built

From prompts to context engineering to skills
An anatomy of skills - Directories, Markdown, and YAML
Building reusable instruction structures
Applying common context strategies
Handling failure modes

Capstone Project - Custom Research Workflow Skills

Discover and triage research sources
Extract and structure knowledge
Synthesize and generate research reports
Manage and orchestrate research workflows

Conclusion

Next steps