The 5 illegal Claude skills

I'll walk you through the first one slowly, then the rest go fast.

Before you start (2 minutes, one time)

You need one thing: a free Claude account. Go to claude.ai, sign up with email or Google, and you're in a chat box. That chat box is all you need for skills 1, 2, 4 and 5.

How to use a prompt from this guide

Click the copy button on the grey box → paste it into Claude → where it says [like this], put your own thing in (or attach your file) → hit enter. That's the whole loop. Every skill below is that same loop with different words.

1 — Screenshot → working app

What it does: you give Claude a picture of any app or website screen, and it builds you a real, clickable version you own.

When I use it: I see a nice pricing page or dashboard layout, and instead of describing it to someone, I just rebuild it.

Step A — ask for it

Take a screenshot of any interface — a website, an app screen, even a photo of a sketch on paper. Open Claude, attach the image (paperclip icon), paste this, hit enter:

Here's a screenshot of a UI.

Rebuild it as ONE self-contained HTML file — working buttons,
clean modern CSS, responsive.

Output only the HTML, then tell me how to open it.

Claude writes a wall of code. Don't read it.

Step B — turn the code into a real file

1. Click the copy button at the top of that code block
2. Open Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) and paste it
3. Save it as test.html — the .html part is what matters
   • TextEdit on Mac: Format → Make Plain Text first, or it saves wrong
4. Find the file and double-click it

It opens in your browser. That's your app — not a picture. You can click the buttons. Send the file back to Claude and say "make the header dark" and it'll change it.

When it goes wrong

2 — Any website → clean code you own

What it does: takes a page you like and hands you a stripped-down, editable version.

When I use it: I find a landing page with a structure that works, and I want it as a starting template instead of staring at a blank screen.

Step A — ask for it

Copy the page address. (Or open it, select everything with Ctrl+A / Cmd+A, and copy that.) Then:

Here's a web page: [paste the URL or the page text here]

Rebuild it as one clean, self-contained HTML file I can edit:
inline the CSS, remove trackers and clutter, keep the structure
and the copy.

Output only the HTML.

Step B — same as before

Copy the code → Notepad → save as something.html → double-click. Now say replace all the text with copy for [your thing] and you have your own page.

When it goes wrong

3 — Auto-caption a video

What it does: you drop in a raw video, you get it back with captions burned on.

This is the one where Claude Code earns its keep. In the free chat, Claude can only tell you the commands to run. In Claude Code, it runs them, sees the errors, and fixes them itself. Big difference when something breaks — and something will break.

Write me a script that takes a video file, transcribes it with
Whisper, and burns clean, styled captions onto it using ffmpeg.

I'm on [Windows / Mac] and I've never used a terminal before.
Give me the exact commands to install everything and run it,
and tell me what each command does in one line.

Then follow its instructions one line at a time.

When it goes wrong

It will. Mine did.

4 — Notes on autopilot

What it does: any article, PDF, or report becomes something you'll actually read.

When I use it: every time someone sends me a 3,000-word thing and I need the point in 30 seconds.

Attach the PDF, or paste the article text, then:

Here's an article.

Give me: a 3-line summary, the 5 key takeaways as bullets,
and any action items.

Skimmable. No fluff.

Level it up

• Three at once: attach three articles and add what's the through-line between these? — this is where it stops being a summarizer and starts being useful
• Make it stick: add now quiz me on it with 5 questions, one at a time
• Keep your voice: add write it the way I'd explain it to a friend, not like a report

When it goes wrong

5 — A real app in an afternoon

What it does: an actual working tool, not a demo. Same day.

When I use it: any time I catch myself doing the same annoying thing manually twice.

I want to build [describe your idea in one plain sentence]
as a small web app.

Act as my engineer:
1) ask me 3 clarifying questions,
2) propose the simplest stack,
3) build it file by file with tests,
4) tell me exactly how to run it.

Start now.

Then answer its three questions honestly. This step is the whole trick. People skip it, get something generic, and decide AI doesn't work.

Ideas that actually work as a first build

• a tip calculator that splits by how much each person drank
• a page that turns your reading list into a printable checklist
• a countdown to a date that you can send someone as a link
• a form that turns client answers into a formatted brief

The one rule

Keep version one tiny. Ship something that does one thing. Then add one feature. Every person I've watched fail at this asked for their whole dream app in the first message and got a mess back.

When it goes wrong

The technique underneath all five

You may have noticed the prompts have a shape:

Here's my thing → do exactly this → give it to me in this format.

That's it. That's the skill. When a prompt of your own doesn't work, it's almost always missing the third part — you told it what to do but not what you wanted back.

And when the first answer is wrong, don't rewrite the prompt from scratch. Just tell it what's wrong. Too long. Closer to the screenshot. I'm a beginner, simpler. Three rounds of that beats one perfect prompt.