A skill that makes Claude run a concept round the way a creative director does, one stage at a time, with you choosing at each fork. It turns a client brief or loose notes into one screen with a single objective, a real audience moment and the tension behind it. It writes at least 24 rough ideas from eight starting points, sets the category's clichés aside, and builds three routes that differ in the truth they play and in how they repeat. Each route has its idea in one sentence, a line, a visual world, five executions sized for their channels, and an honest risk.
Inside are five reference files: the concept brief and how to find a tension, a bank of mechanisms and clichés, ten axes and seven tests that keep three routes apart, dated formats and US rules, and a fully worked example for a fictional hardware store. Claude never invents a claim, a review, a figure or a client name; it leaves a marked gap and asks you. It never names a living artist as a style to copy and never rebuilds a real campaign. The platform sizes, safe zones, FTC rules and AI labels it quotes were checked on 17 to 19 October 2026, each with its source.
Claude cannot make the pictures itself. For the chosen route it writes the concept statement, visual rules with real numbers, the master piece, twenty executions, and the briefs or prompts for your photographer, illustrator or image tool. With code execution switched on it can also count words, check colour contrast and build a concept board as a PDF or PowerPoint file. It works best with a real brief: one objective, one audience and a rough budget. Bring the brand's guidelines or a few past pieces, and push back on any route that feels wrong.
Claude skill · version 1.0
Concept routes
Checking your access.
In the download · 9 files
- SKILL.mdThe method Claude follows: brief, territories, three routes, the choice and the developed concept, one stage at a time.
- README.mdHow to install it in claude.ai or Claude Code, how to start, and the licence.
- references/brief-and-tension.mdThe concept brief, how to find the audience's tension, choosing the one thing to land, and red flags in client briefs.
- references/generating-territories.mdEight starting points for ideas, twelve mechanisms that keep an idea producing, a cliché bank by category, and how to pick three territories.
- references/route-axes.mdTen axes that keep three routes apart, seven tests before showing one, the route card, and how to handle a choice, a merge or a rejection.
- references/formats-and-rules.mdShapes, sizes and safe zones for social, out of home, email and print, contrast for words over images, and US rules on reviews, endorsements and AI images, checked 17 to 19 October 2026.
Install it and begin
01Install it in Claude CodeTerminal mkdir -p ~/.claude/skillsunzip ~/Downloads/concept-routes.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/# Start it with /concept-routes. If this is your first skill, type /reload-skills once.On claude.ai there is nothing to unzip: upload the zip as it is. Every step is on Install and use a Claude skill.
02Your first message to ClaudeText Use the concept routes skill. The brief is for [CLIENT OR PROJECT] and the work is [WHAT IT IS, E.G. A SPRING LAUNCH]. It runs in [COUNTRY AND CITY] on [CHANNELS]. The audience is [WHO, IN WHAT SITUATION]. We have [BUDGET, WEEKS AND PEOPLE]. Here is the brief: [PASTE OR ATTACH THE BRIEF]. Start with the concept brief and tell me what is missing.Attach the client's brief or a page of your own notes, plus brand guidelines or three past pieces the client likes. Real customer quotes help Claude find the tension.
Try this
Run one concept round on a live brief
Take a brief you are working on now, or one you lost last year. Write your own first idea in one sentence and put it away. Run the skill to the three routes in one sitting. Then put your idea next to the three and judge all four with the seven tests in the route file.
Time: About 90 minutes. You need: The brief, or a page of notes on the objective, the audience and the budget, Brand guidelines or three past pieces the client is proud of, your own first idea for the brief, in one sentence, kept hidden until the end.
Look for
- Three ideas you can tell apart with the names covered, not one idea in three colour schemes.
- Each idea written as one sentence a client could repeat after hearing it once.
- A mechanism for every route, so you can list pieces 21 to 25 without strain.
- Questions about facts and figures, instead of numbers Claude made up.
- A risk on every route honest enough to make you hesitate.
- Whether your own idea survives the competitor swap. If it does not, the brief has taught you something.
What to do it with
- ClaudeFree tier, paid above it
A language model that writes, edits, reads long documents and runs tools, including agents that work inside a codebase.
Bad at It is agreeable by default, so it will improve a bad idea instead of telling you it is bad. Ask it to argue against you and the quality of the answer changes.
- Claude CodeSubscription
An agent that reads a whole repository, edits files, runs the tests and explains what it changed.
Bad at It is fast enough to make a large mistake quickly. Work on a branch, read the diff, and never let it push. Watch the starting mode: on Pro, Max and Team plans it opens in auto mode, which Anthropic's own list says may read a .env file and send the key in it to the API that key belongs to. Switch it off.
Why it matters
Ask a chat for concepts and you get ten taglines, or three versions of one idea in different colours. A concept round is a choice between ideas that differ in what they say and in how they keep producing work. This skill makes Claude go wide before it narrows, test each route against the brief and a competitor's name, and tell you the honest risk, so the route you pick is one you can defend in the room.
- Type
- technique
- Period
- ongoing