Claude Skills

Creating a Blogging Skill for Claude Code

I wanted to streamline my blogging workflow with Claude Code, so I created a custom skill that helps me create new blog posts using Hugo. Here’s how I did it.

Understanding Claude Skills

Claude Skills are reusable automation workflows that activate automatically when you make relevant requests. They live in .claude/skills/ directories and consist of a SKILL.md file with frontmatter and instructions.

The Challenge

My blog uses Hugo with a specific structure:

• Posts are organized by year: content/blog/YEAR/filename.md
• Each post needs YAML frontmatter with title, date, and description
• Filenames should be SEO-friendly (lowercase, hyphenated)

I wanted Claude to:

1. Dynamically determine the current year
2. Help me create SEO-friendly titles and descriptions
3. Use Hugo’s hugo new command to bootstrap posts
4. Update the frontmatter automatically

Creating the Skill

First, I learned that skills need a specific structure:

• A directory in .claude/skills/
• A SKILL.md file (uppercase!) with frontmatter
• The frontmatter needs a name and description

I created the skill at .claude/skills/blog/SKILL.md:

---
name: blog
description: Create a new blog post for dabase.com using Hugo with SEO-friendly title and description
---

The Key Insights

1. Use date +%Y - Instead of hardcoding the year, the skill runs this command to dynamically get the current year.

2. Leverage Hugo’s CLI - Rather than manually creating files, use hugo new content/blog/YEAR/filename.md to bootstrap with proper frontmatter.

3. SEO Focus - The skill prompts for what the post is about and generates appropriate titles and descriptions.

4. Filename Generation - Converts titles to lowercase, replaces spaces with hyphens, and removes special characters.

The Complete Workflow

When I ask Claude to create a blog post, it:

1. Runs date +%Y to get the year
2. Asks what the blog is about
3. Suggests an SEO-friendly title and description
4. Generates a clean filename from the title
5. Runs hugo new content/blog/2025/filename.md
6. Updates the frontmatter with the title and description
7. Confirms the file location

Common Pitfall

Initially, I created a single blog.md file in .claude/skills/, but skills must be directories containing a SKILL.md file (uppercase). Once I fixed that structure, everything worked perfectly.

The Result

Now I can simply tell Claude “I want to write a blog post about X” and it handles all the boilerplate, letting me focus on writing content. The skill is version-controlled with my blog repository, so it’s available across machines.

Skills are a powerful way to encode your project-specific workflows directly into Claude Code, making repetitive tasks automatic and consistent.