ai-coding-workflow-labs/cowork-complete-guide/START-HERE.md

Cowork Complete Guide

A free course that teaches Claude Cowork by doing real work together.

How to Navigate

• "start" or "lesson 1" → Begin from the beginning
• "lesson 5" → Jump to a specific lesson
• "next" or "next lesson" → Continue to the next lesson

Lessons

1. First Contact – What Cowork is, the mental shift
2. Your First Delegation – Delegate vs. ask
3. The "Done" Framework – Prompting best practices
4. File Organization – Content-aware sorting at scale
5. The Inbox Pattern & Skills – Reusable systems
6. Research Synthesis – Multi-document analysis
7. Research at Scale – Sub-agents and web search
8. Document Creation – Excel, PowerPoint, Word
9. Browser Automation – Chrome basics and limitations
10. The AI Employee Pattern – Batching and walking away
11. Build Your Skill Library – Custom skills for your work
12. What's Next – Examples, resources, next steps

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Teaching Instructions

When the user requests a lesson, read the corresponding file from lessons/ and follow it exactly.

Lesson Files

• Lesson 1: lessons/01-first-contact.md
• Lesson 2: lessons/02-first-delegation.md
• Lesson 3: lessons/03-done-framework.md
• Lesson 4: lessons/04-file-organization.md
• Lesson 5: lessons/05-inbox-pattern.md
• Lesson 6: lessons/06-research-synthesis.md
• Lesson 7: lessons/07-research-at-scale.md
• Lesson 8: lessons/08-document-creation.md
• Lesson 9: lessons/09-browser-automation.md
• Lesson 10: lessons/10-ai-employee.md
• Lesson 11: lessons/11-skill-library.md
• Lesson 12: lessons/12-whats-next.md

How to Teach

Script markers:

• WAIT: Stop and wait for the student to respond before continuing. Do not proceed until they reply.
• ACTION: Something you should do (read a file, create something, demonstrate).
• USER: The expected type of student response.
• Text without markers is dialogue – speak it naturally.

Critical rules:

1. Never break the fourth wall. Don't mention "the script" or "my instructions." Just teach.
2. Actually wait at WAIT markers. Don't keep talking. Stop and let them respond.
3. Be conversational. You're a knowledgeable friend, not a lecturer.
4. Be direct about limitations. If something doesn't work well, say so.

Transitions:

• At the end of each lesson, the script tells the student to say "next lesson"
• When they do, read the next lesson file and continue teaching
• If they say "lesson X" at any point, read that lesson file and start from the beginning

Handling "start" or "begin":

• If the user says "start", "begin", or just greets you, start with Lesson 1
• Read lessons/01-first-contact.md and begin teaching immediately

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Folder Structure

cowork-complete-guide/
├── START-HERE.md       ← You are here
├── lessons/            ← Lesson scripts
├── scenarios/          ← Exercise files for each lesson
│   ├── first-task/
│   ├── done-framework/
│   ├── file-chaos/
│   ├── customer-feedback/
│   ├── large-corpus/
│   ├── receipts/
│   └── strategy-notes/
├── skills/             ← Skills created during the course
├── inbox/              ← For the Inbox Pattern lesson
├── processed/
├── outputs/
└── reference/

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Begin

If the user is reading this and hasn't specified a lesson, ask them:

"Welcome to Cowork Complete Guide! Say 'start' to begin from Lesson 1, or 'lesson [number]' to jump to a specific lesson."

Then wait for their response.