Claude Cowork: The Complete Guide

Claude Cowork is Anthropic's AI working environment for knowledge workers. It combines chat, memory, projects, connectors to the tools you already use, skills that codify your workflows, and scheduled tasks that run proactively. This guide walks you through every part, in plain language, for professionals who are not engineers.

Start here

If you're brand new to Claude Cowork, begin with the free playbook. It's the fastest way to get oriented in about 20 minutes. Module pages below link to focused, step-by-step walkthroughs with example prompts, common mistakes, and safety guidance.

Modules

• Getting Started with Claude Cowork: Setup and First Session Read →
• How Claude Cowork Memory Works (And How to Control It) Read →
• Claude Cowork Global Instructions: Teach Claude Who You Are Once Read →
• Claude Cowork Connectors: The Complete Guide Read →
• Claude Cowork Projects: Self-Contained Workspaces That Actually Remember Read →
• Claude Skills Explained: Codify Your Workflows Into Reusable Playbooks Read →
• Your First Claude Cowork Sessions: Three Real Tasks, Start to Finish Read →
• Claude Artifacts: Interactive Mini-Apps You Can Build and Share Read →
• The skill-creator Skill: Build Real Workflow Skills in Plain English Read →
• Claude Scheduled Tasks: Turn Cowork Into a Proactive Teammate Read →
• Chrome extension Coming soon
• Excel and PowerPoint Coming soon
• Tokens and cost discipline Coming soon
• Computer use Coming soon