The Skill Forge
The Skill Forge is a pipeline that converts technical reference books into Claude Code skills — structured capability bundles that Claude loads on demand. As of May 2026, 46 books spanning C++, network programming, security, mathematics, finance, and software architecture have been forged into skills available at /skills/.
A Claude Code skill is a self-contained directory of instructions, scripts, and references that Claude loads when a task matches the skill’s trigger conditions. The Skill Forge ingests a technical book, distills its conceptual core, and emits a skill package: capability descriptions, decision rules, and references that Claude can apply to real work without re-reading the book.
The four books below get full longform writeups on this blackboard — they’re foundational enough to warrant dedicated analysis:
All other skill-forged books are indexed below by category with links to their full skill bundles.
C++ and Generic Programming
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| The C++ Programming Language, 4th Ed. | Bjarne Stroustrup | 1346 | Open |
| Programming Principles and Practice Using C++ | Bjarne Stroustrup | 1274 | Open |
| The C++ Standard Library, 2nd Ed. | Nicolai M. Josuttis | 1100 | Open |
| C++ in a Nutshell | Ray Lischner | 800 | Open |
| C++ Concurrency in Action | Anthony Williams | 528 | Open |
| Effective Modern C++ | Scott Meyers | 334 | Open |
| C++ Network Programming, Vol. 1 | Douglas C. Schmidt & Stephen D. Huston | 320 | Open |
| The Boost Graph Library | Jeremy G. Siek, Lie-Quan Lee & Andrew Lumsdaine | 300 | Open |
| Effective STL | Scott Meyers | 260 | Open |
Security, Hacking, and Red Team
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| Hacking & Security | Michael Kofler et al. | 800 | Open |
| Gray Hat Hacking, 6th Ed. | Allen Harper, Ryan Linn, Moses Frost et al. | 650 | Open |
| Mastering Malware Analysis, 2nd Ed. | Alexey Kleymenov & Amr Thabet | 550 | Open |
| Mastering Kali Linux, 4th Ed. | Vijay Kumar Velu | 500 | Open |
| Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Ed. | Jon Erickson | 480 | Open |
| The Hardware Hacking Handbook | Jasper van Woudenberg & Colin O’Flynn | 446 | Open |
| Hacking APIs | Corey J. Ball | 340 | Open |
| Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking | Christopher Hadnagy | 300 | Open |
| Cult of the Dead Cow | Joseph Menn | 290 | Open |
| Evading EDR | Matt Hand | 280 | Open |
| The Hacker Playbook 3 | Peter Kim | 280 | Open |
| ZAP Cookbook | Ryan Soper, Nestor N. Torres & Ahmed Almoailu | 280 | Open |
| Hacking Kubernetes | Andrew Martin & Michael Hausenblas | 240 | Open |
| Gray Hat Python | Justin Seitz | 200 | Open |
| Black Hat Python, 2nd Ed. | Justin Seitz & Tim Arnold | 195 | Open |
| The Ethics of Hacking | Ross W. Bellaby | 160 | Open |
| Red Team Field Manual (RTFM) | Ben Clark | 96 | Open |
Cryptography and Cryptocurrency
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| Handbook of Applied Cryptography | Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot & Scott A. Vanstone | 800 | Open |
| Mastering Bitcoin | Andreas M. Antonopoulos | 280 | Open |
Networking and Network Programming
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| Understanding Linux Network Internals | Christian Benvenuti | 1280 | Open |
| TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1, 2nd Ed. | Kevin R. Fall & W. Richard Stevens | 1000 | Open |
| Foundations of Python Network Programming | John Goerzen | 500 | Open |
| The Definitive Guide to Linux Network Programming | Keir Davis, John W. Turner & Nathan Yocom | 361 | Open |
| Twisted Network Programming Essentials, 2nd Ed. | Jessica McKellar & Abe Fettig | 200 | Open |
Linux Kernel and Systems
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| Understanding the Linux Kernel, 3rd Ed. | Daniel P. Bovet & Marco Cesati | 950 | Open |
| Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Ed. | Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini & Greg Kroah-Hartman | 600 | Open |
Algorithms, Mathematics, and Computer Science
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill |
|---|
| The Algorithm Design Manual, 2nd Ed. | Steven S. Skiena | 730 | Open |
| Cracking the Coding Interview, 6th Ed. | Gayle Laakmann McDowell | 696 | Open |
| Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming | Daniel Sanchez-Crespo Dalmau | 600 | Open |
| The Art of Multiprocessor Programming | Maurice Herlihy & Nir Shavit | 530 | Open |
| Mathematics for Computer Science | Eric Lehman & Tom Leighton | 340 | Open |
| Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design | Richard Bird | 280 | Open |
| Elementary Functions: Algorithms and Implementation, 2nd Ed. | Jean-Michel Muller | 270 | Open |
| Book | Author | Pages | Skill | Blackboard |
|---|
| Investments, 10th Ed. | Bodie, Kane & Marcus | 1056 | Open | Read |
| The Definitive Guide to DAX, 2nd Ed. | Alberto Ferrari & Marco Russo | 738 | Open | Read |
| Domain-Driven Design | Eric Evans | 560 | Open | Read |
| BABOK Guide v3 | IIBA | 512 | Open | Read |
How the Forge works
Each entry above was processed by the same pipeline: EPUB extraction, chapter-level summarization, capability extraction, and skill package emission. The output is a directory under skills/ with a SKILL.md describing when Claude should load the skill, supporting scripts, and reference material distilled from the source.
The four longform writeups exist because those books require interpretive synthesis that a skill bundle alone doesn’t capture — ubiquitous language, evaluation contexts, BA elicitation technique selection, and modern portfolio theory each warrant a full essay on top of the structured skill.