Getting Started: How to Use, Install, and Customize LenderSkills

Every download on this exchange is a skill: a plain-text playbook that teaches an AI assistant a professional workflow: how to draft an LOI, screen a valuation, review loan docs, or build an investor letter. Skills were popularized by Anthropic's Claude, and everything here is formatted to work with Claude out of the box. No code, no installation wizard. A skill is a markdown file a human can read and edit.

1 · What's inside a skill

Open any downloaded file and you'll see the same anatomy:

---
name: cre-quick-valuation
description: Rapid property valuation for loan committee
  screening. Trigger on "quick val," "value this property"...
---

# The playbook itself
Step-by-step instructions, quality rules, output
formats, and guardrails the assistant follows.

The block at the top is the skill's identity. The description matters most: it tells the assistant when to use the skill on its own. Those "trigger phrases" are how the skill activates when you talk naturally.

2 · Loading a skill into Claude

Claude Code (terminal, desktop app, or VS Code)

Create a folder named after the skill inside your project's .claude/skills/ directory and place the file there, renamed to SKILL.md:

your-project/
  .claude/
    skills/
      cre-quick-valuation/
        SKILL.md   ← the file you downloaded

That's the whole install. Type /cre-quick-valuation to invoke it directly, or just ask naturally ("quick val on this multifamily in Mesa") and Claude picks it up from the trigger phrases. Want it available in every project? Put it in ~/.claude/skills/ in your home folder instead.

Claude.ai (web and desktop chat)

On paid Claude plans, skills upload in three steps:

1. One-time setup: open Settings → Capabilities and make sure Code Execution and File Creation is turned on, because skills will not run without it.
2. Go to Settings → Customize → Skills (on some builds it appears under Capabilities instead), click Add / Upload skill, and select your skill. zip the folder first if the uploader asks for a ZIP.
3. Toggle the skill on, then start a new conversation and ask for something the skill covers, and Claude detects and loads it automatically.

On Team and Enterprise plans, an admin can also provision skills organization-wide (Organization settings → Skills), so every seat gets them without individual uploads. If your plan doesn't show a Skills section at all, use the copy-paste method below.

Any AI assistant (the universal method)

A skill is ultimately just excellent instructions. Paste the body of the file into any capable assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) and say: "Follow this playbook for the task I'm about to give you." You lose auto-triggering, but the workflow quality carries over.

3 · Customizing for your shop

Skills on this exchange are published workspace-agnostic, scrubbed of any firm's specifics. Before first use, make them yours:

Fill in the placeholders

Search the file for square brackets. [YOUR RATE RANGE], [YOUR-LICENSE-LINE],[YOUR EMAIL], [CITY, STATE]. Replace each with your firm's real values. A skill that says "loans from [YOUR MIN] to [YOUR MAX]" only writes accurate term sheets after you tell it your credit box.

Tune the triggers

Edit the description to match how your team actually talks. If your shop says "run the box" instead of "quick val," add that phrase and the skill starts responding to it.

Adjust the workflow itself

Everything below the header is editable prose. Add a step your committee requires, delete a section that doesn't apply, change output formats to match your templates. Edit it like a Word document. then test by running one real task through it and comparing the output to your standard. Two or three edit-and-retry rounds usually dials a skill in completely.

4 · Three rules of skill hygiene

Never put credentials in a skill. No API keys, no passwords, no account numbers. skills get shared, forwarded, and uploaded. Reference secrets by name ("your CRM API key") and keep the values in your system's secure configuration.

Read before you run. Every skill here passes five automated screening gates, but you should still skim any skill before giving it to an assistant that touches your loan files. the same way you'd skim a contract before signing.

Keep your edits. When you customize a skill, save your version somewhere your team can find it. Your tuned copy, with your credit box, your tone, and your checklist, becomes real operational IP.

Questions or a skill to share?

Built something your shop swears by? Submit it to the exchange and you get the credit, and every download sends you the downloader's contact info.