Cowork is available on paid Claude plans, subject to surface and organization controls. During the current rollout, some accounts show a Cowork option in the message box; others use the unified Claude experience, where you describe the task directly. Anthropic's getting-started guide
Start with a small set of sources
Suppose you have three fictional workshop documents: a venue email stating a room capacity of 24, an agenda draft listing 30 participants, and a budget note with catering for 28. A useful brief must preserve that disagreement until someone resolves it.
Choose only the files needed for this task. Remove unrelated documents from the supplied set, and identify which files are approved and which are drafts. Then give Claude this request, replacing the brackets:
Prepare an internal planning brief for [WORKSHOP NAME] from the
three source files I provide.
Deliver:
1. workshop-brief.docx: purpose, date, confirmed arrangements,
action items, named owners if present, and deadlines if present.
2. unresolved-decisions.md: contradictions and missing approvals,
with the source filename and supporting passage for each.
Treat the venue email as authoritative for room capacity only.
Do not silently reconcile different participant or catering counts.
Do not invent owners, dates, approvals, or costs.
First describe your approach and any missing input. Keep all
originals unchanged. Do not email, publish, book, or purchase anything.
Save the deliverables separately from the source files.
The filenames specify the requested output; they are not a report of a live Cowork run. If your workplace requires another format, request that format from the start.
Review the approach before the output grows
Start the task from Claude's message box, using the Cowork selector if your interface has one. Review the approach it presents. If it plans to combine the three counts into a single attendance number, intervene before that assumption spreads through the brief.
For this example, a useful correction is:
Keep capacity 24, planned attendance 30, and catering count 28 as
separate source statements. Flag the capacity conflict. Do not
recommend a final attendance count without an organizer decision.
Anthropic documents cloud execution and access to local resources through the connected Desktop app. Keep that app open when the task needs files or the browser on your computer. Do not assume a Cowork task stays entirely on the device. Cloud and local access
Check the files against the decisions they contain
Open each delivered file. For the fictional workshop, the unresolved-decisions file should say that planned attendance exceeds the stated room capacity by six. The action brief should retain the capacity constraint, not present a 30-person room booking as confirmed.
Check one source passage for every consequential number or commitment. Also check that the requested files exist, open in the intended application, and contain the promised sections. A polished document can still omit the unresolved decision that an organizer needs to make.
If the problem is repeated work with the same reference material, Claude Projects covers organizing that context. Here, finish the bounded task by correcting the brief, keeping the originals, and sending the capacity question to the person who can approve a change.