Best Claude Skills for Software Engineers (2026)

Claude Code is already good at writing code. What it is not good at — without guidance — is knowing when not to write code, which design patterns to avoid at your scale, or why your Kubernetes config will fail under load at 3 AM.

These 12 skills are the highest-scored engineering skills on SupaSkills, selected from a catalog of 280+ in the Engineering domain. Each one is built on domain-specific research, includes evaluation frameworks and guardrails, and is scored by SupaScore across six quality dimensions.

Grouped by use case. No filler.

Code Review

Code Review Expert

Tier: Gold | Category: Software Engineering

Generic code review from an AI reads like a linter with opinions: variable naming, missing semicolons, "consider adding a comment here." That is not code review. That is syntax feedback.

The Code Review Expert skill focuses on what matters in production code review: architectural consistency, error handling patterns, API contract stability, and performance implications. It evaluates code changes against the broader codebase context, not just the diff in isolation.

When to use it: Before merging PRs that touch shared modules, data access layers, or public APIs. Particularly useful when the author is less familiar with the codebase area they changed.

What makes it better than generic Claude: It asks the questions a senior engineer asks. Does this change maintain backward compatibility? Are error paths handled consistently with the rest of the codebase? Is this abstraction earning its complexity?

Clean Code Mentor

Tier: Platinum | Category: Software Engineering

Clean code is not about formatting. It is about the gap between code that works and code that works for the next developer who reads it six months from now.

The Clean Code Mentor applies principles from established software craftsmanship research — meaningful naming, function decomposition, dependency management, test structure — as a structured review framework rather than a list of suggestions.

When to use it: During refactoring sessions, when onboarding new team members to codebase standards, or when you want a second opinion on whether a module has crossed the complexity threshold.

What makes it better than generic Claude: Generic Claude tells you to "use descriptive variable names." This skill identifies when a 40-line function is actually three responsibilities wearing a trenchcoat, and shows you how to decompose it without breaking the call chain.

Refactoring Pattern Guide

Tier: Gold | Category: Software Engineering

Refactoring is not rewriting. It is systematic transformation with safety guarantees — each step preserves behavior while improving structure. The difference between a successful refactor and a rewrite-disguised-as-refactor is discipline.

This skill applies catalog-level refactoring patterns: Extract Method, Replace Conditional with Polymorphism, Introduce Parameter Object. But more importantly, it helps you decide which refactoring to apply and in what order.

When to use it: When you are staring at a module that works but nobody wants to touch. When test coverage is spotty and you need a safe path through a structural change.

Architecture

Microservices Architecture Advisor

Tier: Platinum | Category: Software Engineering

The most common architecture mistake in 2026 is still premature microservices. Teams decompose a monolith into twelve services before they have the operational maturity to run two.

This skill does not assume microservices are the answer. It evaluates whether your specific situation — team size, deployment frequency, data coupling, operational capabilities — warrants decomposition. When it does, it guides boundary definition using domain-driven design principles rather than technical convenience.

When to use it: When you are considering splitting a monolith, designing a new system with multiple bounded contexts, or evaluating whether an existing microservices architecture has the right boundaries.

What makes it better than generic Claude: Generic Claude describes microservices patterns from textbooks. This skill asks: "How many people are on your team? How often do you deploy? Do you have a service mesh?" Then it tells you whether microservices are a solution or a new problem.

Database Design Advisor

Tier: Platinum | Category: Software Engineering

Schema design decisions made in week one persist for years. An incorrect normalization choice, a missing index strategy, or a poorly designed relationship model compounds into performance problems and data integrity issues that are expensive to fix retroactively.

This skill evaluates database design against access patterns, not just normalization theory. It considers query performance, write amplification, index maintenance cost, and migration complexity.

When to use it: Before finalizing a new schema, when query performance is degrading and you suspect a structural issue, or when migrating between database paradigms.

AWS Solutions Architect

Tier: Platinum | Category: DevOps & Infrastructure

AWS has over 200 services. The right architecture for a startup burning EUR 500/month on infrastructure is different from the right architecture for an enterprise spending EUR 50K. Generic advice usually lands somewhere in between, which is wrong for both.

This skill evaluates infrastructure decisions against your specific scale, budget, compliance requirements, and team capabilities. It knows the trade-offs between managed and self-hosted, between cost optimization and operational simplicity.

When to use it: When designing new infrastructure, evaluating cost optimization opportunities, or preparing for a scaling event. Especially useful before committing to architectural choices that are expensive to reverse — like choosing between ECS and EKS, or between RDS and Aurora.

DevOps & CI/CD

DevSecOps Pipeline Architect

Tier: Platinum | Category: Security

The highest-scored engineering skill on the platform. Security scanning in CI/CD is table stakes. The difference between a DevSecOps pipeline that works and one that gets ignored is how it integrates: where scans run, how findings are triaged, which gates block deployment, and how false positives are managed.

This skill designs security-integrated pipelines that developers actually follow, not pipelines that produce 400 unread alerts per build.

When to use it: When building a new CI/CD pipeline with security requirements, retrofitting security into an existing pipeline, or when your current security scans are producing noise that everyone ignores.

What makes it better than generic Claude: It knows that a SAST scan that blocks every PR for medium-severity findings will be disabled within a month. It designs pipelines with actionable gates and realistic triage workflows.

Site Reliability Engineer

Tier: Platinum | Category: DevOps & Infrastructure

SRE is not "DevOps with a different title." It is a specific discipline with specific practices: error budgets, SLO definition, incident management, toil reduction, capacity planning. The difference between an SRE practice and ad-hoc operations is measurement.

This skill applies SRE principles as a framework for operational decisions: defining meaningful SLOs, calculating error budgets, designing monitoring that answers "is the user affected?" rather than "is the CPU at 80%?"

When to use it: When defining SLOs for a new service, setting up alerting that does not wake people up for non-issues, or establishing an incident review process.

Container Orchestration Expert

Tier: Platinum | Category: DevOps & Infrastructure

Running containers in production is not the same as running containers in development. Resource limits, health checks, rolling update strategies, persistent storage, network policies — the gap between "it works on my machine" and "it works at 3 AM on a Saturday" is configuration discipline.

This skill covers Kubernetes and container orchestration with a production-first mindset: resource quotas, pod disruption budgets, horizontal pod autoscaling, and graceful shutdown handling.

When to use it: When deploying a new service to Kubernetes, debugging pod scheduling issues, or designing a multi-environment container strategy.

Testing

Testing Strategy Architect

Tier: Gold | Category: Software Engineering

Most teams have tests. Few teams have a testing strategy. The difference: a testing strategy decides what to test at which layer, how much coverage is enough, and where the diminishing returns start.

This skill does not write tests for you. It helps you decide what your testing pyramid should look like for your specific application, which tests provide the most confidence per minute of CI time, and where integration tests are more valuable than unit tests.

When to use it: When starting a new project and defining testing standards, when CI is slow and you need to rationalize the test suite, or when coverage numbers are high but bugs still reach production.

What makes it better than generic Claude: Generic Claude writes individual tests. This skill designs the strategy that determines which tests matter. It knows that 95% code coverage with no integration tests is worse than 70% coverage with good contract tests.

API Performance Testing Expert

Tier: Gold | Category: Software Engineering

Load testing is not "run k6 and see what happens." It is designing scenarios that reflect real traffic patterns, identifying the bottleneck before it bottlenecks, and building performance regression detection into CI.

This skill helps design performance test suites that answer specific questions: What is the p99 latency at 2x current load? Where does the system saturate? Which database query degrades first under concurrent access?

When to use it: Before a launch, before a scaling event, or when response times are creeping up and you need to find the root cause before it becomes an incident.

Security

Security Architecture Reviewer

Tier: Platinum | Category: Security

Security review after the architecture is built is remediation. Security review during architecture design is prevention. The cost difference is typically 10x to 100x.

This skill evaluates architectural decisions through a security lens: authentication flows, data encryption at rest and in transit, access control boundaries, API security, secrets management, and compliance requirements. It identifies risks at the design stage, when they are cheapest to fix.

When to use it: During architecture design reviews, before committing to an authentication strategy, or when evaluating the security posture of an inherited system.

What makes it better than generic Claude: Generic Claude lists OWASP Top 10 categories. This skill evaluates your specific architecture against those categories, identifies which ones are relevant, and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by risk.

OWASP Top 10 Security Engineer

Tier: Platinum | Category: Software Engineering

The OWASP Top 10 is a standard. Applying it is a skill. Knowing that injection is a risk is different from identifying the specific injection vectors in your API, evaluating your input validation strategy, and testing whether your parameterized queries actually prevent second-order injection.

This skill applies OWASP methodology as a structured audit framework, not a checklist. It evaluates code and architecture against each category with specific, testable findings.

When to use it: During security audits, before penetration testing (to fix the obvious issues first), or as a regular review cadence for application security.

How to Load These Skills

Every skill listed here is available on SupaSkills. Connect via MCP or REST API. Free accounts get 3 active slots — enough to cover your primary use case.

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These 12 skills represent the top of the engineering catalog. The full collection includes 280+ engineering skills across Software Engineering, DevOps & Infrastructure, and Security. Browse at supaskills.ai/skills.