Built In Commands And Skills — Claude Code Guide

The / form does not identify the mechanism

The slash form describes how something is invoked, not where it came from. Behind it may be a built-in command, bundled skill, custom skill, plugin, or external tool. Origin, permissions, and lifecycle must therefore be checked separately.

Bundled skill names and available commands can change between Claude Code versions and configurations.

Category	Examples	Purpose
Built-in command	/help, /clear, /compact, /context	Session and context control
Diagnostic command	/status, /doctor	State and diagnostics
Bundled skill	Review or analysis workflow	Ready-made substantive procedure
Custom skill	/issue-analysis	Project or team process
Plugin or external tool	/jira	Data outside the repository

What built-in commands do

/help shows capabilities available in the current session;
/clear clears the current conversation state;
/compact compresses context;
/context helps inspect context usage;
/status and /doctor provide diagnostics.

Bundled and custom skills

A bundled skill ships with Claude Code and produces a substantive result such as analysis, review, or an improvement proposal. A custom skill lives in a specific repository or workflow set and is available only where it was installed.

Unlike /clear, a skill does not manage session history; it runs a repeatable procedure.

.claude/
└── skills/
    └── issue-analysis/
        └── SKILL.md

Identify command origin safely

Run /help and read the description in the current session.
Check the command in another or clean repository.
Inspect .claude/skills/ and project settings if it is absent.
Check whether a plugin or external integration provides it.
Do not experiment in an important checkout with uncommitted changes.

Safe experiment

git checkout -b sandbox/commands
git status

# Inspect the diff and results after the experiment.