Organizing Work and Knowledge

Introduction to Projects

What are projects?

Projects are self-contained workspaces with their own memory, chat histories, knowledge bases, and customized instructions. Think of them as dedicated environments for specific work streams.

Projects are ideal for s

• toring knowledge Claude should reference
• organizing related chats around a specific topic or work area,
• collaborating with team members who need access to the same shared context

When to use projects

Projects are particularly valuable when you’re working on something ongoing—not just a one-off question. Consider creating a project when you have a workflow with:

• Reference materials you’ll use repeatedly (meeting notes, survey results, reports, historical data, etc.)
• Consistent requirements for how Claude should respond (always use formal language, always cite sources, always follow our template)
• Team collaboration needs where multiple people should work from the same foundation

Creating projects

1. Set up project

2. Add project instructions to tell Claude how to behave across all conversations in this project

   • Good project instructions typically include:

     Instruction	Example
     Context about what you’re working on	“This project is for creating marketing content for our B2B software product.”
     Process instructions	“First consider a blog structure that will entice this audience, then write the draft.”
     Tone and style preferences	“Use a professional but conversational tone. Avoid jargon when possible.”
     Specific requirements	“Always include a call-to-action at the end of marketing copy.”

   • You can also use project instructions to automate workflows (Think of instructions as programming Claude’s behavior for this project.)

     • E.g., “When I upload a meeting transcript, create a structured summary using this template.”

3. Build knowledge base

   • Knowledge base is where you upload documents that Claude should reference

   • What to upload:

     • Reference documents

     • Background materials

     • Technical documentation or specifications

     • Examples of work you want Claude to emulate

4. Working within project

   Once your project is set up, you can start chatting with Claude. Each conversation within the project automatically has access to your knowledge base and follows your project instructions.

Examples

Best practices for projects

Creating with Artifacts

What are artifacts?

Artifacts are standalone, interactive outputs that Claude creates in a dedicated window alongside your conversation.

Common artifact types

• Documents: including markdown, plain text, Word docs, PDFs, PowerPoint, and Excel.

• Code snippets: Working code in any programming language.

• HTML pages: Complete web pages with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a single file.

• SVG images

• Mermaid diagrams: Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, org charts, and more.

• React components: Interactive UI elements with real functionality—calculators, dashboards, games, data visualizations.

Creating artifact

Creating an artifact is as simple as having a conversation. Just describe what you want, and Claude will determine whether to present it as an artifact.

If Claude doesn’t automatically create an artifact when you expect one, you can explicitly ask: “Create this as an artifact” or “Show me this in an artifact.”

Tips for getting the most from artifacts

Working with Skills

What are Skills?

Skills are folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude loads dynamically to improve performance on specialized tasks. Think of them as expertise packages—they teach Claude how to complete specific tasks in a repeatable way.

Types of Skills

• Anthropic Skills 
  • Created and maintained by Anthropic.
  • Include enhanced document creation capabilities for Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files.
  • Anthropic Skills are available to all paid users and Claude invokes them automatically when relevant—you don’t need to do anything special to use them.
• Custom Skills are ones you or your organization create for specialized workflows and domain-specific tasks.
  • For example, you might create a skill that applies your company’s brand guidelines to presentations, structures meeting notes in a specific format, or executes your organization’s data analysis workflows.

Using Skills in practice

You typically don’t need to think about them—Claude handles skill selection automatically based on your request.

Security considerations

Because Skills can include executable code, it’s important to use them thoughtfully:

• Only install custom Skills from trusted sources
• Anthropic’s built-in Skills are tested and maintained by Anthropic
• Custom Skills you upload are private to your individual account
• If you’re installing a custom Skill from an external source, review its contents before use to understand what it does.

Creating custom skills

Custom Skills let you teach Claude your specific workflows, brand guidelines, and ways of working—so Claude can apply that knowledge automatically whenever it’s relevant.

The easiest way to create a custom Skill is through conversation with Claude itself. You don’t need to write code or manually create files—Claude handles the technical structure for you.

1. Start a new chat and tell Claude what you want to create.

   • E.g., “I want to create a skill for writing quarterly business reviews” or “I need a skill that applies our brand guidelines to presentations.”

2. Answer Claude’s questions.

   Claude will interview you about your workflow, asking things like: What should this skill do? What makes good output for this type of work? Can you give examples of when you’d use this skill?

3. Upload reference materials if you have them (templates, style guides, brand assets, or examples of work, etc.).

4. Save your skill. When finished, Claude generates a file containing your properly structured skill. All you have to do is save it and the skill will be ready for Claude to use.

Skills vs. Projects

Think of it this way: projects store knowledge, skills perform tasks.

• Projects are knowledge hubs.

  • They hold the reference materials Claude needs to understand your work—project specs, meeting notes, research documents.

  • When you upload files to a project, Claude draws on that information across every conversation within that project.

• Skills are procedural machines.

  • They encode how Claude should execute a task—the specific steps, order of operations, and methodology you want followed every time.

  • Skills shine when you have repeatable workflows you want Claude to run consistently.

The two features complement each other: A skill can reference knowledge stored in a project. The project provides the what (information), the skill provides the how (process).