Custom Commands vs Skills

Once a Claude Code workflow stabilizes, you stop typing the same multi-step prompt over and over. You capture it once and invoke it by name. That is what custom commands and skills are for: reusable, named units of behavior that live in your project or your home directory.

Two axes define everything in this lesson. First, the mechanism: .claude/commands/ is the legacy approach, .claude/skills/ is the current one. Second, the scope: project (shared via VCS) versus user (personal, in ~/.claude/). Get both axes right and your team gets consistent, portable workflows.

A custom command is a markdown file in .claude/commands/. The filename becomes the command name, and the body is the prompt that runs when you invoke it. It is essentially a saved prompt template you trigger by name instead of retyping.

Commands are simple and still work, but they are the legacy approach. They carry no structured metadata for isolating output or restricting tools. For new work, prefer skills, which add exactly those controls.