Claude Code for Non-Engineers in Practice · Part 4 · About 13 minutes

Turn Your Weekly Tasks into a Skill Card: An Introduction to Agent Skills (Meeting Notes and Invoice Filing)

Version at time of writing: Claude Code 2.1.x / November 2026 (content compiled from official documentation accessed November 2026). Claude Code updates quickly, so screen text, command names, and defaults may change. If what you see differs from this article, please refer to the official documentation.

What This Article Will Help You Do

In the previous article, we wrote "rules you should always know" into CLAUDE.md. But you probably have another kind of task too: work you have to do the same way every week (or after every meeting).

For example:

• After a meeting, turn the transcript into meeting minutes that list "decisions, action items, owners, and deadlines"
• At month-end, file this month's invoice photos/PDFs by month and category, then produce a list

For fixed multi-step processes like these, typing out long instructions every time is tedious and easy to forget parts of. The solution is to build a skill card (officially called a Skill, file name SKILL.md): write it once, then type a slash command or just say a sentence, and it follows the process you wrote.

The official documentation is also direct about when to do this: when you keep "pasting the same instructions, checklists, or multi-step procedures into the chat," or when a section of CLAUDE.md has grown into a "process" rather than "facts," it's time to make a skill card.

After reading this, you will be able to:

• Tell apart what goes in CLAUDE.md and what goes on a skill card
• Know where a skill card goes and what it looks like
• Build your first "meeting minutes" skill card step by step and invoke it in two ways
• Build a second "invoice filing" skill card, and learn to use disable-model-invocation so it only runs when you call it
• How to troubleshoot a skill card that doesn't respond

What you'll need:

• Installed and logged into Claude Code following Part 1
• Use the Claude練習 folder, and it's recommended to read Part 3 first
• About 40 minutes

First, understand: skill card vs. CLAUDE.md

The official documentation says the body of a skill loads only when it's used, so even a long process takes up almost no space normally. So: rules go in CLAUDE.md, and processes go in skill cards.

Where skill cards go

A skill card is "a folder containing one file named SKILL.md." The official documentation lists many locations; for non-engineers, these two are enough:

The folder name becomes the slash command name. For example, .claude/skills/meeting-minutes/SKILL.md becomes /meeting-minutes.

Three reminders (all from the official documentation):

1. If names clash, the priority is: enterprise > personal > project. Don't put cards with the same name in two places.
2. The official documentation says Claude Code watches these skill folders, so adding or editing a skill card during your work takes effect without restarting. (Exception: a .claude/skills/ folder that exists only in a subfolder one level below your startup location will load once Claude reads a file in that subfolder.)
3. To keep things easy to follow, this article uses the English folder names meeting-minutes and invoice-archive. It's recommended to use lowercase English letters with hyphens and avoid special symbols. The official documentation sets character limits for names, and if a name is rejected, a notice appears at startup.

What a skill card looks like

A skill card consists of two parts:

---
description: 這張卡做什麼、什麼時候該用
---

（這裡用白話寫步驟，它會照著做）

The section between the two --- lines above is called the "frontmatter" (metadata header). The key part is description. Claude uses it to decide whether a card should be used for the current task. The official advice is to put the most important use case first and to include the words you would naturally say, such as "meeting notes" or "transcript."

Below the two --- lines is the body, which contains your steps. The official documentation also reminds you that the frontmatter's --- must be on the first line of the file. Otherwise, the whole file is treated as body text.

Step 1: Create the folder (meeting minutes skill card)

First, prepare a fake transcript in your practice folder. Open Notepad, create C:\Users\your-name\Claude練習\逐字稿\20261105_採購檢討.txt, and paste in your sample text.

小安：今天要討論新供應商報價。
大明：A 廠比 B 廠便宜 8%，但交期要 21 天。
小安：我們庫存只剩兩週，我覺得 B 廠比較穩。
大明：那就決定先跟 B 廠下一小批試單，下週三前我去談。
小美：我來整理兩家的比較表，週五前給大家。
小安：好，下次會議 11 月 19 日再看試單結果。

(Names and companies are fictional.)

Next, use PowerShell to create the skill card folder (for this practice folder only):

cd "$env:USERPROFILE\Claude練習"
mkdir .claude\skills\meeting-minutes

（若出現「已存在」的提示就代表之前建過，直接下一步）

To make it usable in "all folders," create it at $env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\meeting-minutes instead.

Step 2: Write SKILL.md

In Notepad, create a new file and save it in the meeting-minutes folder with the file name SKILL.md. Choose "All Files" as the save type and UTF-8 as the encoding; otherwise it may be saved as SKILL.md.txt or show garbled text. Paste in:

---
description: 把會議逐字稿整理成會議紀錄（決議、待辦、負責人、期限）。當使用者提到會議紀錄、逐字稿、整理會議時使用。
---

# 會議紀錄整理流程

使用者會指定一份逐字稿檔案（txt 或 docx）。請依序做：

1. 讀取該檔案。如果使用者沒說是哪一份，列出「逐字稿」資料夾的檔案，問使用者選哪一份。
2. 整理成下面的格式，用繁體中文（台灣用語）：
   - 會議名稱、日期（逐字稿檔名開頭若有 YYYYMMDD 就用它；找不到就標「待確認」）
   - 出席者
   - 決議事項（條列，每條一句話）
   - 待辦事項（表格：事項｜負責人｜期限）
   - 下次會議時間（沒提到就寫「未提及」）
3. **不要猜**：逐字稿沒有明講的負責人或期限，一律填「待確認」，不要自己補。
4. 把結果存成新檔案，放在「會議紀錄」資料夾（沒有就建立），檔名格式：
   YYYYMMDD_會議_主題_v1.md。若同名檔案已存在，版本號加 1，**不要覆蓋舊檔**。
5. 最後用 3 行說明：存到哪裡、有幾項決議、有幾項待確認。

A few design choices make this card work well:

• "Don't guess": The most dangerous failure is when it makes up a deadline that doesn't exist. Explicitly tell it to fill in "to be confirmed."
• "Don't overwrite old files": This carries over the safety habit from Part 2.
• Three-line report at the end: This lets you know whether the result is normal without opening the file.

Step 3: Invoke it (two ways)

Start Claude from the Claude練習 folder:

cd "$env:USERPROFILE\Claude練習"
claude

Method 1: Type the slash command directly (most reliable)

/meeting-minutes 逐字稿\20261105_採購檢討.txt

Any text after the slash is passed to the card as extra information (official documentation: arguments passed at invocation are appended).

Method 2: Say it

幫我把採購檢討的逐字稿整理成會議紀錄

Because the description mentions "meeting notes" and "transcripts," Claude will decide whether to load this card automatically. Automatic decisions sometimes miss, so it's not unusual for the card to go unused. If that happens, just use Method 1 directly.

Expected result: a file 會議紀錄\20261105_會議_採購檢討_v1.md appears, with content roughly like this (your output text will differ; the key points are the structure and the "to be confirmed" items):

決議事項
- 先向 B 廠下一小批試單
待辦事項
| 事項 | 負責人 | 期限 |
| 與 B 廠洽談試單 | 大明 | 下週三前（具體日期待確認） |
| 整理兩家比較表 | 小美 | 週五前（具體日期待確認） |
下次會議：11 月 19 日

A detail worth noting here: the transcript only says "next Wednesday" and "Friday" without giving dates. A good result marks these as pending confirmation instead of converting them into specific dates on its own. If it writes out specific dates directly, go back to SKILL.md, make the "don't guess" rule more specific, and try again.

Step 4: Confirm It's in the List

If a skill card doesn't respond, first check whether it has loaded. In Claude Code, type:

/skills

The official docs include this command, which lists the currently available skills. Your meeting-minutes should appear there. You can also just ask:

你現在有哪些技能可以用？

(Screens vary by version; the author did not check each version individually.)

Step 5: The Second Card, Invoice Archiving (Runs Only When I Call It)

Meeting minutes are "organize and save as a new file," which is low risk. Invoice archiving moves files, and this is not something you should let it decide to do on its own.

The official docs provide a field for this: disable-model-invocation: true. This means Claude will not load this card automatically. It only runs when you type /name. The docs say this suits workflows with side effects where you want control over timing, such as deploying or committing.

Create the folder and write the file:

mkdir "$env:USERPROFILE\Claude練習\.claude\skills\invoice-archive"

Contents of SKILL.md:

---
description: 把「待歸檔發票」資料夾裡的發票檔案，依月份歸檔並產生清單。
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# 發票歸檔流程

使用者會告訴你要處理哪個月份（例如 2026-10）。請依序做：

1. 列出「待歸檔發票」資料夾的所有檔案，**先不要動任何檔案**。
2. 依檔名或內容判斷日期與類別（交通、餐飲、辦公用品、其他）。判斷不出來的歸「待確認」，不要猜。
3. 產生一張對照表給使用者看：舊檔名｜日期｜類別｜新位置。
4. **等使用者回答「好」才動手。** 使用者沒說好，就不要搬任何檔案。
5. 同意後：
   - 先把「舊檔名清單」存成 CSV（備份，之後可救回）。
   - **複製**（不是搬移）檔案到「發票歸檔\YYYY-MM\類別\」，檔名格式：YYYYMMDD_類別_金額.副檔名。
   - 不刪除、不覆蓋任何檔案。
6. 最後產生 `發票歸檔\YYYY-MM\清單.csv`（日期、類別、金額、檔名），並說明有幾筆、幾筆待確認。

This card builds in the three safety habits from the previous articles: show a comparison table first, act only after consent, and copy rather than move, keeping a backup.

How to invoke it:

/invoice-archive 2026-10

Test first with 5 fake files (a few txt or image files named like invoices). Don't start with real invoices.

Note: disable-model-invocation only controls whether the card loads automatically. The real brake is still the permission mode from Article 1 (it asks you before acting) and the "wait for my approval" rule in the card. Use both layers together.

What to Check When a Skill Card Doesn't Respond

Following the official troubleshooting order, in plain terms:

1. First, run /skills and check whether the card is listed. If not, the folder location is wrong (it should be .claude/skills/name/SKILL.md, note the dot before claude) or the file isn't named SKILL.md (common mistake: it became SKILL.md.txt).
2. Type /name directly. If it runs but doesn't trigger automatically when you talk, the description probably doesn't include the words you normally use. Rewrite the description and try again.
3. The --- for the frontmatter must be on the first line, and the YAML in between must be formatted correctly. If the format is broken, the official docs say the skill body still loads, so /name still works, but Claude can't use the description to decide when to apply it.
4. Still no response from /name? The name may have been rejected because of special characters. You can start with claude --debug to see more.
5. Changed the card but nothing changed? The official docs say skill content, once loaded in a session, stays at the version loaded at that time. If unsure, exit and restart (type /exit, then claude), which is the safest option.
6. If you plan to automate with a schedule, note: the official docs say skills stored only in your computer's ~/.claude/skills/ cannot be read by scheduled tasks running in the cloud. We'll cover this in the next article on scheduling.

Four "don'ts"

1. Don't put passwords, accounts, or customer data in SKILL.md. Skill cards may be copied or shared with colleagues.
2. Don't pack too many tasks into one card. One card, one task, with a name that's clear at a glance.
3. Don't let cards with side effects (moving, deleting, or sending files/emails) trigger automatically. Add disable-model-invocation: true and write "show me first, act only after I agree."
4. Don't trust a card just because you wrote it. Run every new card once with fake data to check that the results match what you expect, then move on to real data.

Want ready-made templates instead?

Writing your first card takes the most time, because you have to figure out how specific the instructions need to be and which actions must be explicitly forbidden. We've put together a set of skill cards you can drop directly into .claude/skills/, covering common office scenarios such as meeting minutes, file organization, and reports. Each one has a clear structure and "don't guess" and "act only after consent" safety rules. You just change them to your own folder names.

👉 View the Product

(No purchase necessary: the two cards above are enough to get started. Just adapt them to your own workflow.)

Next episode preview

Part 5: Don't Sit at the Computer: Have Claude Code Run Once a Day on Its Own. Skill cards let a workflow run from a single sentence. The next article takes one more step and shows how to have it run on a timer, and why a permission allowlist, log files, and a list of tasks you must never hand to a scheduler matter more than how you set the schedule.

Reference sources (all official documentation, accessed November 2026)

• Extending Claude with skills (locations, SKILL.md format and fields, disable-model-invocation, arguments, live change detection, troubleshooting): https://code.claude.com/docs/zh-TW/skills
• Agent Skills open standard: https://agentskills.io

How-to notes: skill card locations, frontmatter fields, /skills, disable-model-invocation, live change detection, and troubleshooting are all organized from the official docs above. The sample skill cards in this article have not been tested item by item on the author's computer. The "expected results" in the text are illustrative, and actual output may differ (pending verification). The mkdir command is PowerShell syntax for Windows. On Mac, use mkdir -p .claude/skills/meeting-minutes in Terminal. The path ~/.claude/skills/ is the same. The names, companies, and transcripts in the examples are fictional.

Related Series Reading

• Using Claude Code Without Writing Code: Your First Automation Task, Tidying a Messy Downloads Folder
• 100 Files Named "Final (2)": Batch-Renaming with Claude Code, and Recovering from Mistakes
• Teach It Your Habits: How Non-Engineers Write a CLAUDE.md

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