Teaching Claude to Write Better Rust: Automating Microsoft’s Guidelines with Skills

When Microsoft released their Pragmatic Rust Guidelines in September 2025, they did something clever. Beyond the typical human-readable documentation, they created a condensed, AI-optimized version specifically designed for coding assistants like Claude and GitHub Copilot. The timing couldn’t have been better, because just weeks later, Anthropic launched Claude Skills, a powerful new feature that lets you package expertise into reusable modules that Claude can invoke automatically.

Together, these two innovations solve a problem that’s been plaguing Rust developers: how do you get AI coding assistants to consistently follow best practices without manually reminding them in every conversation?

The Problem with Memory-Based Coding Standards

You know the drill. Paste guidelines into chat at the start of every session, or maintain custom instructions in your IDE. Either way, there’s friction. Guidelines get forgotten, context windows fill with repeated instructions, and you spend mental energy policing whether the AI remembered your preferences.

Microsoft understood this when creating their Rust guidelines. With the company systematically replacing C++ with Rust across Windows, Azure, and critical systems like SymCrypt, they needed developers and AI tools aligned on what good Rust looks like at enterprise scale. They produced comprehensive guidelines covering error handling, FFI best practices, async patterns, and documentation conventions, all formatted for reliable language model consumption.

How Claude Skills Change the Game

Claude Skills arrived in October 2025 as persistent folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude automatically loads when relevant. Think of them as custom onboarding materials. Package your expertise once, and Claude applies it whenever appropriate.

The system uses progressive disclosure. At session start, Claude scans available Skills and reads brief metadata from each one, costing just dozens of tokens. When you request a task that a Skill helps solve, Claude loads the full details on demand. Skills are also composable. Ask Claude to create a quarterly investor presentation, and it might automatically invoke your brand guidelines, financial reporting, and presentation formatting Skills simultaneously.

Building Your Rust Guidelines Skill

Creating a Skill that applies Microsoft’s Rust Guidelines is surprisingly straightforward. The guidelines repository already provides everything you need in an AI-optimized format. You just need to structure it properly for Claude to consume.

Start by creating a new directory for your Skill. The location depends on where you’re using Claude. For Claude Code, you’ll place it in ~/.claude/skills/. For Claude apps, you can manage Skills through the Claude Console. For API usage, Skills can be managed through the /v1/skills endpoint when the Code Execution Tool is enabled.

The heart of your Skill is the SKILL.md file. At the top, you’ll include YAML frontmatter that tells Claude when to invoke this Skill. For Rust guidelines, you want Claude to load this whenever it’s working with Rust code:

---
name: Rust Development
description: This skill enforces new code or code changes to conform to proper guidelines
---

# Rust Development

This skill automatically enforces Rust coding standards and best practices when creating or modifying Rust code.

## Instructions

When asked about generating new code or making code changes to existing code, make
sure that edits are comformant to the [guidelines.txt](guidelines.txt) if the language to generate is Rust.
If the file is fully compliant, add a comment // Rust guideline compliant {date}
where {date} is the guideline date/version

---

In the same folder you include the actual guidelines in the file guidelines.txt. Microsoft’s repository provides these in a consolidated format at src/agents/all.txt. This file contains condensed versions of all their guidelines, optimized for LLM consumption.

The beauty of this approach is that you don’t need to summarize or simplify the guidelines yourself. Microsoft’s team has already done the hard work of distilling their practices into a format that balances comprehensiveness with token efficiency. You’re essentially creating a bridge between their carefully crafted guidelines and Claude’s Skill system.

Setting Up the Skill

Once you’ve created your SKILL.md file, the next step depends on your environment. For Claude Code users, the process is beautifully simple. You can install Skills from the Anthropic Skills marketplace using plugins, or manually place them in your ~/.claude/skills directory. Claude automatically loads relevant Skills when you start working.

If you’re using Claude through the web interface or mobile apps, you’ll manage Skills through the Claude Console. Enterprise and Team plan users have additional administrative controls, allowing admins to approve Skills before they’re available to team members.

One important consideration: Skills can execute code. This is powerful because it means your Skill can include scripts that format code, run linters, or validate against standards. But it also means you need to be thoughtful about which Skills you install. Anthropic recommends thoroughly auditing Skills from less-trusted sources, paying particular attention to code dependencies and any instructions that would have Claude connect to external network resources.

For the Microsoft Rust Guidelines Skill, you’re working with trusted, open-source content from Microsoft’s official repository. The guidelines don’t execute arbitrary code or make network requests. They simply provide knowledge that Claude applies when reasoning about your Rust code.

Seeing the Skill in Action

Once installed, the experience is seamless. Start working on a Rust project and Claude automatically recognizes when your Skill is relevant and loads it. You’ll see evidence in Claude’s chain of thought if enabled, but mostly Claude just applies the guidelines. Create a new module, get proper documentation with a first sentence under 15 words. Request a public function, receive comprehensive documentation with required sections. The difference shines in code review. Tell Claude to review your Rust code and it evaluates against Microsoft’s comprehensive standards automatically, catching missing Debug implementations, incorrect async patterns, improper error handling, and documentation gaps without explicit instruction.

Beyond Basic Guidelines

The Skill becomes more powerful when extended with your team’s conventions. Microsoft’s guidelines provide an excellent foundation, but your organization likely has domain-specific standards. Maybe conventions around async code for your runtime, standardized logging patterns, or error type hierarchies. These can coexist with Microsoft’s guidelines in one Skill, or as complementary Skills that stack together. You might have a general Rust Guidelines Skill plus specialized ones for specific domains: web services for API design patterns, systems programming for unsafe code practices, performance-critical for zero-allocation patterns. When working on projects touching multiple domains, Claude loads and applies relevant Skills in concert.

Integration with Your Development Workflow

Skills work across Claude’s ecosystem: web interface, Claude Code, and the API. This portability matters for teams. Version control Skills alongside code, sharing through Git. New team members clone the repository and get the institutional knowledge about writing code properly. Team and Enterprise plans let administrators manage Skills centrally, controlling availability while giving developers flexibility to experiment.

Practical Considerations

Skills work best when guidelines are clear, actionable, and consistent. Microsoft’s guidelines excel because they’ve been tested on production systems at scale, following specific quality criteria: they improve safety, performance, or maintainability; reflect consensus among experienced developers; are comprehensible to newcomers; and are pragmatic enough for real-world use. When creating custom Skills, keep these principles in mind. Vague guidance like “write good code” won’t help. Specific patterns like “implement Debug for public types, redacting sensitive fields” give Claude concrete direction. Follow Microsoft’s example of distilling key points while preserving essential detail to keep Skills effective without overwhelming context windows.

Looking Forward

The combination of Microsoft’s Rust Guidelines and Claude Skills shows how development workflows are evolving. We’re moving from AI assistants needing constant direction toward systems carrying organizational knowledge and applying it automatically. Early adopters report dramatic results: Rakuten’s tasks that took a day now take an hour, Notion sees more predictable outcomes with less prompt wrangling. For Rust developers, this lowers the steep learning curve. Having an AI assistant that consistently applies proven best practices means junior developers get expert-level guidance while senior developers spend less time on mechanical correctness and more on architecture. As Microsoft expands Rust’s infrastructure role and Anthropic enhances Skills, this pattern will proliferate across languages and technology stacks.

Getting Started Today You need a Claude Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise subscription. Grab Microsoft’s Rust Guidelines from their GitHub repository at microsoft/rust-guidelines. The AI-optimized content is ready to use. Create your Skill directory, populate SKILL.md with guidelines and frontmatter, place it in the right location. Fifteen minutes tops.

Then start coding. The first time Claude automatically applies the guidelines without being asked, you’ll understand why this feels different. It’s not about bigger context windows or more powerful reasoning. It’s about the right knowledge at the right time, packaged properly. Microsoft created guidelines that work for both humans and AI. Anthropic created a system letting AI access them exactly when needed. Together, they’ve solved how to help AI write better code: teach it like you’d teach a person, understanding that AI and humans learn differently.