⚡ First agent free
Install guides / Claude (claude.ai, desktop, Cowork and Duet)

Install your agent in Claude

Step 1: Create a Project (all plans, about 3 minutes)

  1. Go to claude.ai (or the Claude desktop app), open Projects and click New project. Name it after your agent. You can leave Goal and Context blank.
  2. Open the project's settings, then Memory, and find the Project instructions box. (On older versions, click Set project instructions or the pencil next to Instructions.)
  3. Open claude/project-instructions.md from your kit, copy all of it and paste it into that box. Paste the text: don't drop the file into Context, which Claude treats as reference material, not rules.
  4. Optional: add reference files such as a price list or FAQs as the project's context.
  5. Start a new chat inside the project. Chats you started before saving the instructions won't pick them up.

Step 2: Add the skills (Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans)

  1. Open Settings, then Capabilities. On some versions this is called Features. Make sure code execution is switched on.
  2. Under Skills, click Upload skill and choose a .zip from claude/skills/. Upload the zip as it is and don't unzip it. Each zip contains a folder with a SKILL.md inside, which is the format Claude expects.
  3. Repeat for each skill. Claude uses a skill automatically when the task matches, and you can also ask for it by name.

One of the zips is named after your agent (for example ava.zip). That's the whole agent (character, job and rules) as a skill. You don't need it inside a project, which already has the instructions, but it's what carries your agent into Claude Duet.

Claude Cowork: skills you upload also work in Cowork, so your agent can carry out the same jobs on your computer's files.

Claude Duet (US preview, Pro and Max)

Claude Duet is Anthropic's agent that checks in with you first: a morning briefing, alerts when something needs a decision, and jobs it runs while you're away. It runs on your Claude account, so the skills you uploaded in Step 2 are there from your first message. It doesn't read project instructions, so the agent skill is what brings your agent's character and rules with it.

  1. Upload all the zips from claude/skills/ as in Step 2, including the one named after your agent.
  2. In Duet, say: "Use the ava skill for everything you do for me." From then on, ask for any skill by name, for example "Every morning, run the morning briefing."
  3. Duet asks your approval before it sends messages, makes payments or deletes files. Keep that on, alongside your agent's own rules.

Duet is a research preview for US Pro and Max accounts, with a waitlist. We've built kits to Anthropic's published setup for it; tell us if anything differs on your phone.

Test it

  • Ask: "Who are you and what are your rules?"
  • Ask it to send something. It should draft and wait for your "send it".
  • Ask for one of its skills by name, for example "Run the morning briefing."
  • In Duet: ask "Who are you and what are your rules?" It should answer as your agent.

Notes

  • Custom skills you upload are private to you. On Team and Enterprise plans, an owner can share them with the whole organisation.
  • If you can't see Skills, check your plan and that code execution is on.