Claude Code Glossary
Key terms and definitions for the Claude Code and Claude Skills ecosystem. Understanding these concepts helps you get the most from AI-assisted development.
SKILL.md
A markdown file that defines a Claude Code skill with instructions, triggers, and metadata.
CLAUDE.md
A project-level configuration file that customizes Claude Code's behavior for your codebase.
MCP Server (Model Context Protocol)
A standardized server that gives Claude Code access to external tools and services.
Hooks (Claude Code Hooks)
Automation rules that fire before or after Claude Code takes specific actions.
Rules (Claude Code Rules)
Markdown files in .claude/rules/ that define specific behavioral constraints for Claude.
Subagents
Specialized AI agents spawned by Claude Code to handle delegated tasks in parallel.
Claude Code
Anthropic's agentic AI coding tool that operates in your terminal and IDE.
Agentic Coding
AI-assisted development where the AI autonomously plans, executes, and verifies multi-step tasks.
Skills Directory
The file system location where Claude Code looks for installed skills (.claude/skills/).
Prompt Engineering (for Skills)
The practice of writing effective SKILL.md instructions that produce consistent, high-quality AI outputs.