Distil CLI Skill for Claude
A Claude skill for training task-specific small language models (SLMs) using the Distil Labs CLI.
What This Skill Does
This skill teaches Claude how to help you:
- Train specialized SLMs - Create models up to 70x smaller than large models while maintaining accuracy
- Prepare training data - Generate proper data files for classification, QA, and tool calling tasks
- Run the Distil CLI - Execute commands for the full training workflow
- Deploy models locally - Set up your trained models with Ollama or vLLM
Installation
Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/distil-labs/distil-cli-skill
/plugin install distil-cli@distil-cli-skill
Claude.ai / Claude Desktop
- Download this repo as ZIP (or click "Code" → "Download ZIP" on GitHub)
- Go to claude.ai → Settings → Capabilities → Skills
- Click "Upload skill" and select the downloaded ZIP file
- Toggle the skill ON
Prerequisites
Install the Distil Labs CLI:
curl -fsSL https://cli-assets.distillabs.ai/install.sh | sh
Supported Task Types
| Task Type | Use Case | Example |
|---|
| Question Answering | Extract answers from documents | Invoice parsing, contract analysis, ticket extraction |
| Classification | Categorize text into fixed classes | Intent detection, sentiment analysis, ticket triage |
| Tool Calling | Select and invoke functions/APIs | API routing, workflow automation, chatbot actions |
| Open Book QA (RAG) | Answer questions using provided context | Document QA, support from docs |
| Closed Book QA | Answer from knowledge learned during training | FAQ bots, domain assistants |
Quick Start
Once the skill is installed, just ask Claude to help you train a model:
"Help me train a classification model for customer support intent detection"
Claude will guide you through:
- Creating a model with
distil model create
- Preparing your data files
- Uploading data and running teacher evaluation
- Training the model
- Downloading and deploying locally
Documentation
License
Apache 2.0 - see LICENSE for details.
distil-labs