Cowork — home and task detail

What it is

Cowork’s task capabilities are becoming part of ordinary Claude conversations. In the unified experience, describe your outcome without choosing a Chat or Cowork mode first.

This rolls out gradually, starting with Pro and Max on desktop, web and mobile. Accounts that still show Chat | Cowork retain the older mode selector. The 7 October inspections show the unified home on both platforms for this account.

Where to find it

On desktop

Select Claude → New. The scoping control is Project or folder; Manual controls permissions. If your account still has the Chat | Cowork switch, select Cowork before describing a task.

On the web

Select Claude → New at claude.ai. The scoping control is Project; Manual controls permissions. Use Cowork only if your account still offers the separate mode.

How to use it

Describe the finished result you want. Provide the files, context or connected apps Claude needs.
Use a project when related work needs shared instructions and context.
Choose Manual (the default) or Auto to control action approvals in the unified experience. Manual is a permissions control, not a project tab.
Let Claude work, or send further instructions to steer it.
Reopen the conversation from Recents to review progress and retrieve the output. You can pick up a cloud task on another surface.

Accounts awaiting the unified rollout

The September interface placed a Chat | Cowork toggle inside the composer. Selecting Cowork started a task. That observation explains why older screenshots have a selector that migrated accounts no longer show; the inspected unified home instead shows Jump back in and sidebar recents. Personal task records were excluded from the review.

Good to know

New Pro and Max tasks run in the cloud from 6 October. They keep working after you close your laptop. Existing local tasks stay on their original computer.
Local tools still need Desktop. Keep the app open for tasks using your connected folders, browser or screen.
Old tasks remain accessible. Search does not include older Cowork tasks; find those by name in Recents.
No switch back. Once your account moves to the unified experience, you cannot restore the separate Chat and Cowork modes.

What’s changed recently

2026-10-07 — Both homes show unified conversations, model/effort and permission controls; Project or folder on desktop becomes Project on web. No separate Chat/Cowork selector is shown on this account.
2026-10-07 — documentation review. Updated for the unified conversation rollout. Current home controls were inspected without starting a task; full-workflow verification dates and build remain unchanged.
2026-09-13 — Rewritten for the way Cowork starts now. There is no separate Cowork home page: you flip the composer’s Chat | Cowork toggle on the ordinary New surface, and the page changes around it. Web status moves from stub to covered — the web home is where the Beta pill, the Project / Manual scoping tabs and the Active / Clear active tray are. The composer is the same one Chat uses, rotating placeholder included. Three things this page used to describe have been removed because we could not verify them: the “Let’s knock something off your list” greeting, the strip of controls under the composer, and the three-column task-detail walkthrough.
2026-07-12 — The Cowork home moved into the merged Home surface.