I cut my Claude skill registry from 89 skills to 38 without deleting a rule

Description and use

The author reduced Claude's skill registry from 89 to 38 by merging skills into modes, creating routing tables, and implementing a validation gate, cutting per-turn description load by 52 % while preserving all functionality.

Problem

Managing a large number of Claude skills caused performance issues, cross-file contract failures, and maintenance complexity.

Outcome

Reduced per-turn description load by 52%, standing instructions by 43%, consolidated skills into 38 merged units, maintained all functionality without deleting any rule, and established a robust validation gate.

Workflow

• 1. Treat a mode as the unit instead of a skill.
• 2. Merge skills by folding each skill’s body into a # Mode: section within a new merged skill.
• 3. Create a table listing modes and their sections at the top of each merged skill.
• 4. Route names as skill:mode tokens (e.g., verify:claim).
• 5. Repoint old skill names to new skill:mode tokens following four rules: rewrite names in live instructions only, leave code blocks, changelog history, and headings untouched.
• 6. Build a legacy table mapping old names to new tokens for backward compatibility.
• 7. Write a gate that checks nine validation rules for each skill (frontmatter, name, description length, version, code fences, changelog table, old names, headings, body integrity).
• 8. Run the gate on a copy, intentionally break it to confirm each check catches failures.
• 9. Fix blind spots (e.g., old names in tables) and prevent already-merged files from being input.
• 10. Verify all skills and modes have routes and that the registry is capped at 50.
• 11. Plan next steps: split large merged skills into reference files per mode to reduce trigger load, confirm install state, and resolve unresolved section references.

Evidence

With 89 custom skills, those descriptions added up to 70,918 characters in every conversation.

Source

Per-turn skill descriptions went from 70,918 characters to 33,962, a 52% cut.

Source

I wrote a gate and made it prove itself before I trusted it.

Source