Record a skill: show Claude your task once with a screen recording

Until recently there were two ways to create a skill in Claude: write a SKILL.md file by hand, or build one together with Claude in a conversation. Both work well, and both have the same hidden requirement: you have to put into words exactly how you do your work. For a lot of tasks that's harder than it sounds. You know precisely which file to grab, which column to check and which step to skip, but you've never had to spell it out. You just do it.

That's the gap the newest option closes. With Record a skill you don't describe your task. You demonstrate it. You record your screen while you do the work once, you narrate your reasoning out loud, and Claude turns the recording into a skill it can follow again and again.

What is Record a skill?

Record a skill is a feature of Claude Cowork in the Claude desktop app for Mac. You'll find it under the plus menu in Cowork. When you start a recording, Claude captures your screen, your clicks, your typing and your voice for the length of the session.

When you stop the recording, Claude starts a Cowork task, reviews the recording, and proposes a skill: a written set of instructions that describes the task the way it observed you doing it. You review that proposal before anything is saved. Once you save it, the skill appears under Customize > Skills and behaves like any other skill: you can run it, edit it, share it and delete it on the same terms.

The clever part is what you don't need. No API key, no MCP connection to the software you were using, no technical setup. If the task happens on your screen, it can become a skill.

How it works, step by step

1. Update Claude for Mac. Record a skill lives in the desktop app, so make sure you're on the latest version.

2. Start a recording from the plus menu in Cowork. The first time, macOS will ask for two permissions: Screen Recording, so Claude can see what happens on screen, and Accessibility, so it can track your mouse and keyboard. Both are required.

3. Do the task once, the way you always do it. Open the files, click through the screens, fill in the fields. Work at a normal pace; you don't need to perform.

4. Narrate while you work. Say out loud what you're doing and, more importantly, why. This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that makes the difference between a mediocre skill and a good one.

5. Stop, review and save. Claude analyzes the recording and proposes a skill. Read it critically: does it capture the steps and the decision rules correctly? Adjust what's off, then save. Done — the next time this task comes up, you hand it to the skill.

Narrate your reasoning, not your clicks

Claude can see what you click. What it can't see is why. The narration is how the reasoning behind your actions makes it into the skill, and it's what separates a skill that mimics your clicks from a skill that understands your task.

Compare two ways of narrating the same moment. Silent, or: "Now I click the export button." Claude already saw that. Versus: "I'm choosing this file because it's the newest finished version — drafts stay where they are." That second sentence contains a decision rule that isn't visible on screen anywhere, and it's exactly what Claude needs to handle the task correctly next month, when the file names are different.

Good narration sounds like explaining the task to a new colleague who's watching over your shoulder: "This one still needs approval, so I'm not moving it yet." "I always set this upload to private before saving." "I skip this step when the reference number is missing." Every sentence like that becomes a rule in the skill.

What you need

Record a skill is available on the Pro, Max and Team plans, inside Cowork in Claude for Mac. It is not available in regular chat, not on Windows, and not on the Free or Enterprise plans. Beyond that, all you need are the two macOS permissions from step 2.

If you're on Windows or don't have access yet, nothing is lost: the other two routes — writing a SKILL.md yourself or co-creating a skill in conversation — still work exactly as before, and they produce the same kind of skill.

Mind what's on your screen

One warning deserves its own section. During a recording, everything on your screen is captured, along with everything you say. So treat a recording session the way you'd treat sharing your screen in a meeting: don't type passwords or secrets, close private conversations and documents that have nothing to do with the task, and keep notifications from popping in where you can.

The review step is your second safety net: before saving, you see exactly what Claude distilled from the recording, and you can strip out anything that doesn't belong in a reusable instruction.

Which tasks are a good fit

The sweet spot is the recurring task with judgment calls in it. A few examples that come up in almost every job:

The weekly report routine. You pull numbers from the same dashboard, paste them into the same template, and apply the same little corrections every week. Record it once, narrate your corrections, and the routine becomes a skill.

Working inside tools without a connector. Your CRM, your booking system, your internal admin tool: Claude doesn't need an integration to learn the workflow, because it learns it from your screen.

File handling with unwritten rules. Renaming, filing and archiving according to a system that exists only in your head. Narrating the recording is, conveniently, also the moment that system finally gets written down.

Anything you'd have to explain to a new colleague anyway. If onboarding someone means sitting next to them and demonstrating a task, that demonstration is a recording waiting to happen.

A recording is a first draft, not a final product

Treat the proposed skill the way you'd treat any first draft: run it, look at the output, and refine. A skill made from a recording is an ordinary skill — a written instruction set you can edit. If the first run misses an edge case, add the rule by hand or record a short follow-up. After one or two rounds you have a skill that does the task the way you do it.

And that's the real shift here. Skills used to be for people comfortable writing instructions. Now the threshold is: can you do the task and talk at the same time? If yes, you can build a skill. Pick one recurring task this week, hit record, and explain it like you would to a new colleague. Fifteen minutes now, every repetition after that is Claude's.

Frequently asked questions

On which plans and platforms can I record a skill?

Record a skill works on the Pro, Max and Team plans, in Cowork in the Claude desktop app for Mac. It's not available in chat, on Windows, or on Free and Enterprise plans. Skills themselves work everywhere; only the recording route is Mac-only for now.

Does Claude need access to the apps I use in the recording?

No. That's the point: Claude learns the workflow by watching your screen, so it doesn't need an API key or MCP connection to the software involved. Whether Claude can later execute every step itself depends on what the task requires, but the skill captures your working method either way.

Is my recording safe?

Everything on screen and everything you say is captured for the length of the session, so keep passwords, secrets and unrelated private information out of view while recording. You review the proposed skill before it's saved, and you can edit or delete it at any time afterwards.

What happens if I don't narrate?

You'll still get a skill, but a flatter one: Claude sees your clicks without the reasoning behind them. Skills made from narrated recordings capture your decision rules, are labeled more accurately and hold up better when the details of the task change.