| Guide ID | GS-2 |
|---|---|
| Audience | All users |
| Prerequisites | GS-1: Installation & Setup |
| Time | 15 minutes |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
Core Concepts
GSD Skill Creator is built around five core concepts: Skills, Observations, Agents, the Token Budget, and Skill Scopes. Understanding these concepts is essential before you start creating and managing skills.
Skills
Skills are reusable knowledge files stored in .claude/skills/. Each skill is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter that defines when the skill should activate, what knowledge it provides, and metadata about the skill itself.
Skill Scopes
Skills exist at two levels: User-level (~/.claude/skills/) shared across all projects, and Project-level (.claude/skills/) for project-specific customizations. Project-level takes precedence.
Observations
The observation system watches your Claude Code sessions and stores pattern summaries in .planning/patterns/. When patterns repeat 3+ times, they become skill candidates.
Agents
When skills frequently activate together (5+ co-activations over 7+ days), the system suggests combining them into composite agents stored in .claude/agents/.
Token Budget
The token budget controls how much of Claude's context window is allocated to loaded skills. Default: 15,500 characters across all loaded skills (2-5% of context window).
What's Next
- How It Works — Walk through the six-step workflow
- Skills vs Agents vs Teams — Understand when to use each abstraction