Giant language fashions entered the mainstream when OpenAI wrapped one in a chat window and known as it ChatGPT. The interface was so intuitive that everybody copied it, and it is nonetheless how most individuals take into consideration AI: you sort a query, you get a solution. But a lot has changed since then.
There’s now a complete ecosystem of instruments round these fashions—file entry, customized directions, reusable abilities, browser management—that turns them from chatbots into assistants that really get work accomplished. In case you’re nonetheless utilizing Claude like a easy chatbot, you are leaving most of your subscription’s worth on the desk. Here is what I modified to get essentially the most out of mine.
Cease utilizing the Claude internet app
The chat window was by no means the entire product
Once you subscribe to Claude, you are getting three core merchandise: the Claude internet app, the Claude desktop app with Cowork, and Claude Code, a CLI device you run from a terminal. There’s additionally Claude Design, however it’s rather more area of interest than the opposite merchandise.
Now, the error I used to make—and one I nonetheless see loads of individuals make—is sticking to the net app, or downloading the desktop app however solely utilizing the usual chat mode. It really works, however it’s a really primary expertise: you ask a query, get a solution, and all the things you create stays remoted in that dialog. Cowork, which is exclusive to the desktop app, changes that.
In Cowork, you give Claude entry to a folder in your laptop. Now, whenever you ask it to construct a plan, create a spreadsheet, or deal with every other activity, it creates the file and saves it in that folder. Your subsequent dialog can choose up proper the place the final one left off as a result of all the things is already there on disk. Likewise, you may drop your individual recordsdata into the folder, and Claude can learn and work with them as effectively.
You too can have Claude manage all the things right into a folder construction that it will possibly navigate in future conversations. Over time, you find yourself with a system that grows alongside your work as an alternative of a pile of disconnected chats the place you are at all times ranging from scratch.
Claude Code works the identical approach however is optimized for software program growth. With Cowork, you are largely creating paperwork, spreadsheets, and PDFs—the sort of data work most individuals do day-after-day. With Claude Code, you are creating HTML, JSON, and different code recordsdata, organizing them into initiatives, spinning up native situations, and pushing all the things to GitHub—the same old developer-centric workloads.
Utilizing Claude Code in your smartphone
Sadly, Cowork and Claude Code are desktop-only. On cellular, you are restricted to the usual Claude app, which does not have the file system entry wanted to assist these workflows. Luckily, there is a workaround: in case your telephone has a terminal app, you may set up Claude Code in it and provides it entry to your telephone’s file system.
I take advantage of a Google Pixel 10, which ships with a built-in Terminal app, and I’ve put in Claude Code there with direct entry to my recordsdata. It really works surprisingly effectively and unlocks the identical sort of natural-language automation you get on a desktop. That mentioned, I am unable to say whether or not terminal apps on different Android telephones supply the identical stage of file system entry, or whether or not something comparable is feasible on an iPhone. In case your telephone’s terminal can entry the file system, although, it is positively price attempting.
Change over to open-source and local-first apps
Locked-in information is useless weight for automation
One of many first issues individuals did after discovering that Claude Code and Cowork may create and handle recordsdata in your laptop was pair them with Obsidian. The reason being easy: Obsidian shops your notes as plain Markdown recordsdata in your native drive. Which means Claude can generate a complete assortment of notes, whilst you can browse, edit, and hyperlink them in Obsidian. It is a highly effective mixture, and it illustrates a broader thought: the worth of preserving your information open and native.
Now examine that with Notion. Each notice you create lives inside Notion’s ecosystem as an alternative of as an everyday file in your laptop. If Claude must work together with these notes, it usually has to go through an API. That may work, however it’s nowhere close to as easy, clear, or versatile as giving Claude direct entry to a folder filled with Markdown recordsdata.
That is why I’ve began prioritizing local-first apps and software that shops information in open, accessible codecs. When your notes, duties, and paperwork exist as strange recordsdata in your laptop, Claude can learn, manage, remodel, and join them with out counting on proprietary integrations.
Make the most of the CLAUDE.md file
An important file that hardly ever will get talked about
That is most likely essentially the most underrated characteristic in Claude Code and Cowork. You see, whenever you give Claude entry to a folder, it does not load the whole listing into its context the second you begin a dialog. That is intentional—as a result of if it did, each chat would start with a context window filled with redundant data, burning by your tokens sooner and reaching the context restrict a lot sooner. As a substitute, Claude solely reads recordsdata when it wants them.
Nevertheless, there’s normally some data that you really want Claude to know earlier than you even ask your first query. That is precisely what the CLAUDE.md file is for. Consider it because the equal of Custom Instructions in Claude or ChatGPT—a persistent immediate that Claude robotically reads each time it begins working in that listing. The distinction is that CLAUDE.md is directory-specific.
When Claude begins working in a folder, it reads that folder’s CLAUDE.md and follows its directions. Now if the workflow requires it to maneuver right into a subdirectory, it’ll learn that subdirectory’s CLAUDE.md as effectively, updating its habits based mostly on the brand new directions. That allows you to manage your initiatives with completely different steering for various folders, so that you hardly ever have to elucidate the identical issues twice.
It is not only for directions, both. I additionally use CLAUDE.md as a sizzling cache for data Claude ought to at all times have available. This consists of the individuals I work with, a glossary of phrases and acronyms, particulars about my setup, and my most well-liked workflows. That approach, each new dialog begins with the context that really issues. The one rule of thumb is to maintain it quick—ideally beneath 200 traces. Past that, it begins consuming an excessive amount of of your context window and turns into extra of a legal responsibility than a profit.
Use and create customized Expertise
Construct the workflow as soon as, reuse it without end
Prompts are important if you’d like Claude to work a sure approach, and also you most likely have already got a group of them on your common workflows. For a very long time, the first approach to reuse these prompts was by Claude Projects—the equal of customized GPTs in ChatGPT. Save a immediate in a Undertaking, and each dialog you begin there robotically consists of it.
Skills (stored as SKILL.md files) take that concept to the subsequent stage. A Talent is basically a immediate paired with directions describing when and the way it needs to be used. As a substitute of switching to a devoted Undertaking or beginning a separate dialog, you may invoke a Talent at any level throughout a chat. Simply press /, sort the Talent’s title, and press Enter. Claude masses the Talent into the lively dialog. Higher but, Claude also can invoke the suitable Talent robotically when it acknowledges that the present activity matches one.
The largest benefit Expertise have over Initiatives is “chaining.” Think about you will have one immediate for analysis, one other for turning that analysis right into a long-form article, and a 3rd for repurposing it into social media posts. Beforehand, that meant leaping between a number of Initiatives and repeatedly copying context from one to a different. With Expertise, you may invoke all three in the identical dialog, letting Claude carry the context by the whole workflow from begin to end.
There are already loads of Expertise out there from each Anthropic and the neighborhood, however the actual worth comes from creating your individual. At any time when I develop a workflow with Claude, I refine it till I am constantly pleased with the outcomes. Then I ask Claude to assessment the dialog and switch all the things we discovered right into a reusable Talent. Anthropic even features a built-in Talent known as Talent Creator that automates a lot of this course of. After doing this a couple of occasions, you find yourself with a library of reusable workflows tailor-made to the way in which you’re employed.
Give Claude entry to your browser
When there isn’t any connector, there’s nonetheless a browser
You most likely know Claude helps Connectors (together with MCP servers) that permit it work together with different purposes. For instance, you may join Claude to Notion and Google Calendar, permitting it to learn your duties, create calendar occasions, or synchronize data between the 2. However that solely works when an utility exposes the APIs Claude wants. Loads of apps and SaaS platforms do not.
That is the place browser automation is available in. Even with out an API, you may nonetheless use most internet apps your self by opening them in a browser and clicking by the interface. By giving Claude entry to your browser, it will possibly do the identical—navigate the applying like an individual, retrieve the knowledge it wants, and full duties in your behalf.
For instance, I had Claude undergo my Spotify account, analyze each monitor in my Appreciated Songs playlist, and export the outcomes to an Excel spreadsheet. Claude’s Spotify connector could not try this, however browser automation may.
Claude provides you highly effective instruments—however it’s your duty to make use of them proper
Claude is not only a chatbot. It is a big language mannequin that is out there by a chat interface, backed by an ecosystem of instruments that allow you to construct genuinely helpful automations. Set it up with a working folder, reusable Expertise, a CLAUDE.md file that captures your context, and browser entry for all the things else. Unexpectedly, it begins feeling much less like one thing you chat with and extra like an assistant—and even an intern—that may maintain a shocking quantity of routine be just right for you.
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