How to Set Up Claude Code Skills on Windows (2026 Guide)

Claude Code on Windows runs inside WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). This means your skill paths look different from what macOS and Linux guides show, and there are a few Windows-specific quirks that trip people up. This guide covers the exact setup.

Prerequisites

You need WSL 2 installed with a Linux distribution (Ubuntu is most common). Claude Code runs inside WSL, not in native Windows. If you haven't set this up yet:

wsl --install

Restart your machine, then open Ubuntu from the Start menu and run Claude Code from there.

Where Claude Code stores skills on Windows

Because Claude Code runs in WSL, the paths are Linux-style paths inside your WSL filesystem:

Personal skills (available in all projects):

~/.claude/skills/

In WSL, the ~ expands to something like /home/yourname/. This folder lives inside the WSL virtual filesystem, not on your regular Windows drive.

Project skills (shared with your team):

.claude/skills/

This is relative to your project root. If your project lives at /home/yourname/projects/my-app/, the skills go in /home/yourname/projects/my-app/.claude/skills/.

Accessing WSL skill folders from Windows Explorer

You can browse your WSL files directly from Windows Explorer. Type this in the address bar:

\\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\yourname\.claude\skills\

Replace Ubuntu with your distribution name and yourname with your WSL username. This lets you drag and drop skill zip files directly into the right location.

You can also pin this path to Quick Access for fast access.

Installing skills step by step

Option 1: From the terminal (recommended)

Open your WSL terminal and navigate to the skills directory:

cd ~/.claude/skills/

If the directory doesn't exist yet, create it:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/

Download a skill from Agensi or clone from GitHub:

# From a zip file (downloaded to Windows Downloads folder)
cp /mnt/c/Users/YourName/Downloads/code-reviewer.zip .
unzip code-reviewer.zip

# From GitHub
git clone https://github.com/user/skill-name.git

Verify the structure:

ls ~/.claude/skills/code-reviewer/
# Should show: SKILL.md (and optionally other files)

Option 2: From Windows Explorer

1. Download the skill zip from Agensi
2. Open Explorer and go to \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\yourname\.claude\skills\
3. Extract the zip here
4. Check that the SKILL.md file is at the right depth (not double-nested)

Common Windows-specific problems

"Permission denied" when copying files

Windows and WSL have different file permission models. If you get permission errors:

chmod -R 755 ~/.claude/skills/skill-name/

Files created from Windows have wrong line endings

If you edit a SKILL.md file using a Windows text editor (Notepad, etc.), it may save with CRLF line endings instead of LF. Claude Code handles this fine, but if you see parsing issues:

sed -i 's/\r$//' ~/.claude/skills/skill-name/SKILL.md

Or configure your editor to use LF line endings for files inside WSL.

Skill not detected after installing

Claude Code loads skills at session startup. If you installed a skill while Claude Code was running:

1. End the current session
2. Start a new Claude Code session
3. The skill should now be available

You can verify with:

ls ~/.claude/skills/

Path confusion: /mnt/c/ vs WSL native

Your Windows C: drive is accessible in WSL at /mnt/c/. But skills should live in the native WSL filesystem (~/.claude/skills/), not on the mounted Windows drive. Storing skills on /mnt/c/ works but is slower due to filesystem translation overhead.

Project-level skills on Windows

If your project is on the Windows filesystem (e.g., you cloned it to C:\Users\YourName\Projects\my-app), you access it in WSL at:

/mnt/c/Users/YourName/Projects/my-app/

Project skills go in .claude/skills/ inside that directory:

mkdir -p /mnt/c/Users/YourName/Projects/my-app/.claude/skills/

For better performance, consider moving your project into the native WSL filesystem. Git and file operations are significantly faster there.

Quick reference

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Browse and install security-reviewed skills for Claude Code on Agensi.