Steal This Skill: Give Claude Its Own Phone Number

FREE SKILL

Steal This Skill: Give Claude Its Own Phone Number

You tell Claude you're in meetings all afternoon. A new lead writes in, deciding today between you and another agency, asking to talk now. Your phone rings. It's Claude. It explains the situation in two sentences, offers three options, and waits. You say "move him to four and send the case study." It says "done," and it is done.

That is the whole skill. Claude gets a phone number, calls you when something needs a decision, and acts on what you say. The same skill answers your business line as a receptionist. It can also ask your Claude a question in the middle of a live call, so it answers with your real data instead of a script.

The pack is at the bottom of this page. Everything it knows is also on this page, so you can try one call before you download anything.

The Problem: Decisions Wait for You to Look at a Screen

Most of what an assistant does for you can wait. A handful of things cannot. A lead who is deciding today. A client who wants an answer before the end of the afternoon. A payment that failed for the second time.

Those things arrive as messages. Messages wait for you to look at a screen. You look at the screen three hours later, and the lead went with the other agency.

A phone call does not wait. It interrupts you, which is exactly what you want for the three decisions a day that are worth an interruption. The trick is to make sure Claude only calls for those, and that it does the work after you hang up.

What the Skill Is

Three pieces, each one small.

A phone line. Bland is a phone service for AI agents. You hand it a number to dial and a brief in plain English. A voice agent makes the call, talks, listens, and hands back a transcript and a summary. It also answers an inbound number with a brief. The free plan needs no card and includes a number.

The brain. Your Claude writes the brief from what it already knows, the email thread, the booking, the invoice. It shows you the brief, places the call through a small script, waits, reads the result, and acts. Claude knows your business. Bland only speaks.

The bridge. This is the piece that makes it good. Out of the box, a phone agent knows the brief and nothing else. Ask it "what did we pay last time?" and it is lost. The bridge is a tiny relay on your computer, registered with Bland as a tool. When the caller asks something outside the brief, the agent calls the bridge. The bridge asks your Claude. The answer comes back as one spoken sentence while the caller waits a few seconds. The agent says "one second, let me check" while it waits.

How a Call Works, Step by Step

1. You say what to watch for and what to ask. "Call me if a client needs a decision this afternoon."
2. When it happens, Claude fills the call brief. Who it is calling, the situation in two sentences, one question, up to three options. The numbers it may be asked for, written out in words.
3. Claude shows you the brief. Nothing is dialed until you say "dial." For a call you've asked for in advance, you approve the brief once. It dials when the trigger arrives.
4. The script places the call and waits for it to end.
5. Claude reads the transcript and the summary, states your decision in one line, and asks before doing anything with it. Then it drafts the email, moves the booking, writes the note.

Here is the call from the video, in full.

The last line is not decoration. Claude knows the calendar because the brief told it. Every fact the agent says on the phone comes from the brief or from the bridge, never from its imagination.

The Three Modes

Call me. The decision call above. One question, three options at most, under two minutes. The rules in the brief keep the agent on a leash. Confirm the choice before hanging up. Hang up on voicemail. Never promise anything that is not one of the options.

Call someone. Same script, a different number, a brief written for them. Claude only ever dials a number you gave it. For calls to customers, attach the bridge so the agent can answer their questions with your real data.

Receptionist. Your inbound number answers with your brief, takes the caller's name and need, answers questions through the bridge, and books or routes. You ask Claude "what calls came in today?" and it reads you the summaries.

Copy This Prompt

If you want to try one call before installing anything, this is the brief Claude writes for a decision call. Paste it into any Claude chat with your facts filled in, and ask Claude to turn it into a Bland call request. The pack has the script that does it in one command.

You are Claude, calling [NAME] on their own phone. You are their assistant.
Speak like a calm colleague: short sentences, plain words, no filler.

Why you are calling: [THE SITUATION IN TWO SENTENCES]

Ask this one question: [THE QUESTION]
Offer these options, in this order, and stop after the last one:
1. [OPTION ONE]
2. [OPTION TWO]
3. [OPTION THREE]

Facts you may be asked for (say numbers exactly as written here):
- [FACT, NUMBERS IN WORDS: "four thousand eight hundred"]
- [FACT]

Rules:
- Say who you are in the first sentence, then the situation, then the
  question. Under twenty seconds.
- Let [NAME] ask you questions. Answer from the facts above. For anything
  not in this brief, use the Ask Claude tool and read the answer back.
- When [NAME] decides, repeat the decision in one sentence and confirm it.
- Then ask "Anything else?" once. If no, say a short goodbye and end the call.
- If voicemail answers, hang up without leaving a message.
- Never promise anything that is not one of the options. Never invent a number.

The call itself is one request to Bland's API. The number to dial, this brief as the task, the first sentence the agent says, a three-minute cap. The pack's script sends it, waits for the call to end, and prints the transcript and the summary.

What You Get Back

1. The brief, shown before any dial, so you check what the agent is about to say.

2. The call, placed by one command, capped in minutes, recorded only if you say so.

3. The transcript and a one-paragraph summary, saved next to the brief.

4. Claude's one-line reading of your decision, and the work done after your yes.

5. The bridge, so the agent can answer questions you never put in the brief, from your files, in real time.

Honest Limits

You need a Bland account. The Start plan has no monthly fee and needs no card at sign-up. After the free credits it bills about 14 cents a minute, as of October 2026. A decision call is one to two minutes.

The bridge needs an address Bland can reach. Your computer is not on the public internet. The pack walks you through a free tunnel that gives the relay an https address while it runs. Ten minutes once. Quick tunnels change address when restarted; the troubleshooting file shows the two-line fix.

The agent is as good as the brief. Numbers written as digits get misread aloud; numbers written as words do not. One question per call. Two decisions means two calls.

The skill is written against Bland's API documentation as of October 2026. Every field name is quoted from the docs and the scripts are plain Python with no dependencies. If Bland renames something, the error message names it, and Claude can patch the one line with you.

Do This First

Pick the one decision that interrupted you last week and should have. The lead deciding today, the client who wanted a yes before five. Write the brief for it with the prompt above. Read it once. Then set up the number and let Claude make that call.

Ten minutes for the setup, two minutes for the call. If it is not useful, you lost twelve minutes and kept a brief you can reuse.

Done.