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Claude Code Tool Mapping
Skills speak in actions ("dispatch a subagent", "create a todo", "read a file"). On Claude Code these resolve to the tools below.
Tools
| Action skills request | Claude Code tool |
|---|---|
| Read a file | Read |
| Create a new file | Write |
| Edit a file | Edit |
| Run a shell command | Bash |
| Search file contents | Grep |
| Find files by name | Glob |
| Fetch a URL | WebFetch |
| Search the web | WebSearch |
| Invoke a skill | Skill |
Dispatch a subagent (Subagent (general-purpose): template) |
Agent (older releases named this Task) |
| Multiple parallel dispatches | Multiple Agent calls in one response |
| Task tracking ("create a todo", "mark complete") | TaskCreate, TaskUpdate, TaskList, TaskGet; TodoWrite in claude -p / Agent SDK unless CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS=1 is set |
| Background-process / subagent lifecycle (read output, cancel) | TaskOutput, TaskStop — these are distinct from the todo tools above and apply to running shells, agents, and remote sessions |
Instructions file
When a skill mentions "your instructions file", on Claude Code this is CLAUDE.md. Claude Code walks up the directory tree from the current working directory and concatenates every CLAUDE.md and CLAUDE.local.md it finds along the way. Standard locations:
| Scope | Location |
|---|---|
| Project (team-shared) | ./CLAUDE.md or ./.claude/CLAUDE.md |
| User global | ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md |
| Local-private (gitignored) | ./CLAUDE.local.md |
| Managed policy (org-wide) | /Library/Application Support/ClaudeCode/CLAUDE.md (macOS), /etc/claude-code/CLAUDE.md (Linux/WSL), C:\Program Files\ClaudeCode\CLAUDE.md (Windows) |
CLAUDE.md files can pull in additional content with @path/to/file imports (relative or absolute, max five hops deep). Subdirectory CLAUDE.md files are also discovered automatically and loaded on-demand when Claude Code reads files in those subdirectories.
Claude Code does not read AGENTS.md directly. If a project already maintains AGENTS.md for other agents, import it from CLAUDE.md so both runtimes share the same instructions:
@AGENTS.md
## Claude Code
(Claude-Code-specific instructions go here.)
For path-scoped rules and larger-project organization, see .claude/rules/ (rules can be scoped to specific files via paths frontmatter and load on demand).
Personal skills directory
User-level skills live at ~/.claude/skills/. Each skill is a subdirectory containing a SKILL.md (with name and description frontmatter) plus any supporting files. Claude Code does not currently recognize the cross-runtime ~/.agents/skills/ path that Codex, Copilot CLI, and Gemini CLI read; if you're relying on cross-runtime support in the future, verify against the official skills docs.