Spoken summary — press play to read along: the line being spoken stays near the top.
Estimated time: 5 minutes
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you'll be able to:
- Name the four building blocks that make Claude better at your work over time: global instructions, projects, skills, and plugins
How Cowork gets better at your work
In Lesson 4 you delegated one task and got a real deliverable back. What this module adds is the part that compounds: the more Claude knows about you, your work, and how your team does things, the better the next deliverable is — and the faster you get there.
Four building blocks make that happen. Each one gives Claude something it can carry forward, so the context you supply once keeps paying off.
The four building blocks
Four ways Cowork learns about you
Each one gives Cowork a different kind of knowledge. Each kind makes it more capable.
L6
Global instructions
What Cowork learns
Who you are and how you work.
What that unlocks
Every task starts already calibrated to your role, your formats, and your preferences.
L6
Projects
What Cowork learns
The context of one stream of work.
What that unlocks
Inside the project, Cowork works like someone already on the team, with access to the files, the history, and the decisions to date.
L7
Skills
What Cowork learns
How a specific process should be done.
What that unlocks
When a matching task comes up, Cowork runs it the way your team would: your templates, your standards, your steps.
L8
Plugins
What Cowork learns
The expertise of your role or field.
What that unlocks
Cowork goes from generalist to specialist, with the workflows, connectors, and know-how someone in your seat needs.
They're independent and they compound. The more Cowork knows, the more it can take off your plate.
You're not going to start with all four of these on Day 1. As you work in Cowork more, you'll realize what global instructions make sense to apply to every conversation. You'll start to see your recurring workstreams and what makes sense to have as a project. If you find you're explaining the same workflows to Claude multiple times, those will be the right opportunities for your first skills. And as you and your teams perfect those processes, plugins will come in as you have something worth sharing.
What’s next
The next three lessons take you through these layers in order. Lesson 6 covers global instructions and projects — the layer most people set up first. Lessons 7 and 8 cover skills and plugins, finishing with a hands-on activity that gets a real plugin installed for your work.
Feedback
As you progress through the course, we'd love to hear how you're using concepts from it in your work, plus any feedback you may have. Share your feedback here.
Acknowledgments and license
Copyright 2026 Anthropic. All rights reserved.