Claude Cowork: Build Your Own Jarvis

Hey co-work, I am hung over. What are we supposed to be doing today? Finalize outline for workshop, dinner, newsletter, right? Um, review expenses. Um, how much did I spend last month? Process last month's credit card statement. My spending is about a,000% mainly from Bumble Premium. Good job throwing money away while not landing a single. That's unnecessarily harsh. Did I really spend that much? Oh, all right. Moving on. Um, finalize my next newsletter using my tone of voice and just link me to the notion page. I'm too hung over to do anything today. Okay, final copy under final copy section. All right, let's open the link. Okay, this is my rough draft up here. And final copy there. cuz you probably missed the tip one. All right. Not bad. Okay. Uh, not bad. That was easy. Um, I'm going back to bed. Thanks. Oh, no. What the All right. I'm not actually hung over, but what Co-work did is real, and it's insane what it can do with the right setup. And in this video, I'll walk you through how to build that setup without burning through your rate limits. Let's get started. So, how did Coowork

actually do all of that? Let me show you what happened behind the scenes. Here you can see I named my parent folder iCloud OS because get it, it's supposed to be iCloud, but we're using Claude, so it's iCloud. I'm so funny. Anyways, um whenever I start a new session, Co-work will always first read this claw. md file, which is essentially a set of master rules for co-work. Then co-work will read the memory. mmd file to remember what we did last time. So these two files together, cloudmd and memory. mmd run my entire cowwork workspace. And here's the single most important takeaway from this video. These are just simple text files. So don't be intimidated. If I click this open, you're like, "Oh my god, this looks like code. " It's not. I can select all this text, copy, open up any notes app, paste. And I'm just going to scroll all the way back up. And all of a sudden, you realize it's not that scary. Header one, Jeff's co-work. Uh, this is the central hub for all projects, planning, and work sessions. And underneath, it's simple text. The crazy thing is you don't even need to write any of this text yourself because Co-Work writes all of this for you. And by the end of this video, you'll see just how simple this system is. For example, within my rootclaw. mmd file, there is an instruction here that says at the start of every session, readmemory. mmd before responding. So, let's open up the memory. md file. And what do you know? There is a section right at the top here called active projects and work followed by a list of all the active projects I'm working on. That's how coor knows what I'm working on right now. It's the same idea with my tone of voice. Within the claw. md file, there's a section called content and production where the rule is saying, "Hey, read this Jeff's voice principles markdown file before outputting anything to Jeff. " Right? And that's how my newsletter goes from rough talking points to a final draft sounding like me. In plain English, claw. md is the instruction manual that tells co-work how to behave and it points to other files whenever it needs more detail. That's it. That's the entire system. To really help you understand

here's a simple analogy. The United States is governed by a set of countrywide laws called the US Constitution that apply to every person in every state. Theoretically, this is level zero, the root level, countrywide laws. Moving one level down, we have state laws. For example, California has its own laws that help tech billionaires get even richer. And New York, not to be outdone, has New York state laws helping the finance billionaires get even richer. I'm just kidding with the laws, obviously. Not really. But the point is, every state has state level laws that stack on top of the US Constitution. So, a business in California is bound by the countrywide constitution plus California state law. Here's how this maps to our co-workspace. The root cloud MD file is the constitution that governs the entire workspace. And one level below, we have individual workstations like email HQ, newsletter HQ, and personal finances that each have workstation specific instructions that stack on top of the rootle instructions. Put simply, the rules in my newsletter HQ workstation only apply when I'm working on my newsletter. But the root level rules apply no matter what I'm doing. We can extend this one level further to project specific rules that apply to a single project, but we'll keep things simple today and just focus on the top two

levels. Now that you have the full picture, let's start building at level zero, the root level. First, create a folder in your documents and name it cowwork OS. And because I'm such an angel, I've prepared three starter templates for you. A claw. md file, a memory. mmd file, and a voice principles. mmd file with the exact structure I use myself. All linked below. Pro tip, open up each one of the MD files. Go to file, download, markdown to make sure you're downloading in the right format. After downloading the files, drop the clawed MD and memory MD files into your root folder. Then create a 00 resources folder and within this folder, move the voice principles. MD file over. We can now go back to co-work and select the parent folder we just created right here, co-work OS. And after we open it, we click always allow. And we can even go ahead and star this so that co-work defaults to this folder every time we start a new session. Just so we're 100% clear, the claw. md file is the instruction manual that tells Coowwork how to behave. The memory empty file is like a notepad that stores things coowork should remember between sessions. And the root resources folder contains detailed knowledge that co-work only loads when it needs to. Pro tip, install the free app obsidian. And under open folder as vault, we can click open and locate the co-work OS folder we just created. Click open. And now we can simply view the cloudd and memory. md files in a more readable format. Don't worry, you don't have to learn how to use Obsidian. I don't know We're just using it to read the markdown files. Clicking into the root claw. md file, there are three things I want to highlight here. First, under memory system, right up top, there's a line that says at the start of every session, read memory. mmd before responding. And there's a rule after that says when I say remember this, write the information to memory. MD. And these two sentences are why co-work has persistent memory. Second, the routing map section contains a table that tells Coowwork which workstation folder to load for which type of task. We haven't built any workstations yet, but when we do later on this video, this is where they'll be all listed. And third, references. These are pointers to files in our root 00 resources folder that co-work only reads when it needs to. This is one of the ways to keep token usage low. By the way, I had to cut a lot of detail to keep this video within 20 minutes, but I go a lot deeper and share more templates in my free co-work toolkit. So, I'll leave a link to that down below as well. Moving on to the memory. mmd file, we have two sections here, active projects and memory. Starting with the memory section. This is where co-work will automatically add entries when you tell it to remember something. For example, in a new session, I type current events are distracting everyone from the e-list. Remember that. and coowwork will add that to the root memory file as a new entry first. You can see that under the memory section, co-work has added a new entry right here. And to test this out, we can even start a new session and ask, "What did I say about distractions recently? " And after a few seconds, which I will fast forward, Co-work will draw from its memory and answer correctly. Back in our memory file, the active project section works the same way. Just tell co-work about projects you're actively working on. And I'll add both the project and the progress of that project right here. Moving on to the resources folder, we can now start building out our voice principles file. So assuming you watched my first co-work video and you connected your co-work to Gmail via connectors right here, what you want to do is go ahead and grab this prompt template that I've linked below. It's the same link. You want to paste this option one Gmail connected prompt template into a new session within co-work. Press enter. And what this does is co-work is now going to extract writing patterns from your last 30 sent emails to build your voice profile. If you haven't connected Gmail, find five writing samples that you like, could be yours or someone else's, and simply paste the prompt template under option two, no Gmail connected, and it does the same thing. After a few minutes, Coowwork will tell you that the voice principles file has been updated. And we can click into the voice principles markdown file to see all the patterns it has extracted. For example, I apparently talk in a warm, direct, and professional tone of voice without being stiff. Co-work will just add more entries uh as it learns more about your preferences. And just for reference, my actual voice principles file, voice principles file is actually over 150 lines long. By the way, the reason I keep saying root cloud MD, root memory MD and root resources folder is because each workstation below that root level gets their own cloud MD resources folder and memory MD. But before we get to workstations, everything we built today revolves around one important concept, relevant context. And that's something I learned firsthand from today's sponsor, Corsera. Longtime viewers know I took Google's AI essential specialization on Corsera and made an entire video about it. And the one learning that stuck with me all this time is how surfacing implied context is the key to getting better AI outputs. Implied context is the stuff you inherently know but forget to tell the AI every time. Your writing style, your active projects, how you like your email structured. That's the whole point of Claude MD and Memory MD. They remember it for you, so co-work always has the full picture. 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we've covered the root level and going one level down is workstations. And these are basically areas of your life. Each with its own claw. md file, memory. mmd file, and resources folder. Rley speaking, there are two types of workstations. Universal workstations handle things you do across every area of your life. Email is the clearest example. You email your team, your accountant, your sponsors, your friends. So the rules for how you write email apply across multiple workstations. Dedicated workstations handle one specific area of your life. For example, within personal finances, I manage my spending, my savings, and my tax deadlines. Now, let's start by creating a universal workstation, Email HQ. I first grab the prompt template from the same link below where you downloaded the starter templates and go to the email HQ video prompt. And then you're going to copy this, head on back to your Cloud Co-work, and paste it in and click enter. And we're just going to let this run for a minute or two. And I'm going to fast forward this next part. All right, now that it's done, let's walk through what the prompt just did. First, the step one, it triggered a rule inside our root cloud MD. So, let's just open that up. Under our root cloud MD, we have a creating new workstations section that say whenever I ask for a new workstation, create a subfolder with that name and add a cloud MD, memory MD, and empty resources folder inside. Then, step two, the prompt's own instructions kick in. Similar to the previous example, it basically says to search my Gmail send folder for the last four weeks of emails. Then analyze and extract only email specific patterns that aren't covered by my root voice principles. For example, like greeting and signoffs, right? And once you have those patterns, uh, add them to the editorial rule section of my email HQ Claude MD. Now in both our Cowork OS parent folder and within Obsidian we can see that Cowwork has created a email HQ workstation along with a cloud MD and memory MD file and a empty email HQ resources folder. And if we open up the email HQ CloudMD, we see that under editorial rules, co-work knows to first follow my voice principles in the global voice principles. mmd file and knows that the rules below layer on top with email specific conventions like my default greeting, my default signoff, etc. So just to be clear, this is where the rule stacking comes in. The next time co-work writes an email, it will first read my voice principles markdown document to see that I'm warm direct and professional and I lead with transparency, right? And then it'll read my email HQ claw MD file to understand my email specific preferences. And that's how my emails sound like me and follow my email conventions. Now, if I open my actual email HQ CloudMD, you'll see that I actually taught Cowwork my inbox zero workflow, meaning it knows about the two-minute rule, what labels I use, and why, when to archive, when to snooze emails, and it would just works perfectly. If you want my complete system with pre-built workstation templates and a step-by-step walkthrough so you can skip the trial and error of building from scratch, I'm putting together a Coowwork Academy course, and you can sign up for the weight list down below. Moving on to dedicated workstations. These workstations handle one specific area of your life. Unlike email, which touches everything, your personal finances live in their own world, right? Their own rules, their own context, their own memory. So, first with the Co-work OS folder mounted, I share the past 12 months of my credit card statements. And then I grab the personal finances prompt template uh from the same link below where you got all the other templates. And you paste it into Co-work. And then you let it run. While that's working, before I get flooded with questions about data privacy, it's just personal preference. Okay? I'm fine with sharing my credit card statements with co-work. If you're not, don't. It's literally that simple. All right, it's done. Let's walk through what happened. First, similar to the email HQ example, the prompt created a personal finances workstation folder along with a personal finances cloud MD and memory. MD and an empty resources folder inside. Second co-work read every transaction across my statements, broke down the spending by category, and built a master spending tracker spreadsheet inside my personal finances resources folder right here. And we can click into preview. We can see that it created four tabs. Transactions, yearly summary, monthly summary, and category taxonomy. And let's say co-work made a few classification mistakes. For example, this one, Canva should not be freelancer and contractors. It should be software and subscription, right? That's totally fine because after I correct co-work once, telling it, hey, canvas actually subscriptions and software, it will remember that for next time and next month's expenses will be categorized correctly. Pro tip, Obsidian only indexes markdown files, so the Excel file is invisible in the sidebar here, even though it obviously exists on disk, right? So, just remember that the Co-Work OS folder is a single source of truth when it comes to saved documents.

Now, after building almost 30 workstations, I can tell you it's best to start slow. Build two or three workstations out. Get used to how the CloudMD and memory MD files all interact to work together and only build new workstations when the need comes up. One things to note before we move on. Under my dedicated workstations, I also have project subfolders. For example, under my housing workstation, I have a project for refinancing my mortgage. Under travel, I have one project folder for every planned trip this year. Under speaking engagements, I have a project for an upcoming corporate workshop. Each project gets its own cloud MD memory MD and resources folder. So, it's the same underlying logic here. All right. And if you want to get into more detail, sign up for the free co-work toolkit. All

right. Now, let me quickly walk through a few of my use cases so you know what's possible once everything is set up. Let's say I come across a copywriting framework I know I'll use at some point. I can simply take a screenshot, paste it into coowork and say, I feel like this should be saved somewhere. Figure it out for me. And thanks to the routing map in my rootclaw. mmd, co-work knows that this belongs within my existing copywriting frameworks file. Another simple example, within my email hq cloudmd, there is a rule that says before drafting any email, search Gmail for existing threads with the recipient on the same topic. Right? Since I hate it when people start new threads for no reason. Onto a more intermediate example. I can tell co-work, hey, I just finished a meeting, so draft a follow-up email to all recipients. And I won't waste your time here, but basically co-work knows to pull the latest event from my calendar. Go to the meeting transcripts folder, read the transcript, and realizes it's related to an upcoming corporate training. Load the speaking engagements workstation, and drafts a follow-up email to my client that adheres to the rules for my email HQ workstation. This is the power of Claude Co-work. Last example, I can tell Coowork, hey, I'm going to Boston from July 17th to 24th for a wedding. Set up a project in Notion. And because Co-work knows all my notion conventions found under my command center claw. mmd, it creates the project page and fills out every property and every section in Notion exactly how I'd want it. I chose a travel project for simplicity, but every project Co-work creates follows the exact same process. fill out the properties, fill out the um project page, uh create a notes thread to track progress, all because I taught Co-work my rules once. Moving on to two pro tips

that will save you time and money. First, whenever I'm done working with a session in Co-work, I type forward slash session audit. And this triggers co-work to scan the entire conversation and look for unsaved principles and preferences it needs to remember for next time. I've included a starter session audit skill in the link below. So, all you have to do is download it. And then after that's downloaded, head on over to your coowwork workspace, customize skills plus create a skill, upload a skill, and simply just select the starter session audit skill. Click open. And after it gets mounted, assuming that you finished entire conversation, at the end of a session, you can just simply say either for slash starter session audit or say before we wrap audit this session. Both works. Pro tip number two addresses a tiny problem you may or may not have noticed. Claude's usage limits. So here are three ways to keep token usage low without sacrificing quality. First, keep your root cla. md file within 300 lines. And this is because coowwork loads the root claw. mmd by default in every session. You want to keep that file as lean as possible by pointing to other resource files only when the situation calls for it. Two, don't repeat the same rule in multiple files. For example, my root voice principles has rules like no corporate jargon, never bury the lead, right? So I do not restate those rules inside my email HQ CloudMD and instead email HQ only focuses on email specific preferences like thread first drafting and three default to the sonnet model because 80% of the time sonnet is more than enough and it's a fifth of the cost of opus. So only switch to opus when the task has three or more steps that all depend on each other. I've been making videos for six plus years now and I've never fear-mongered. So, I don't say this lightly, but you need to start building a system like this today. It doesn't have to be on Claude because Google and OpenAI will definitely come up with co-work equivalents. You don't even have to use my templates or take my course. But you do need to start building this personal contact system as soon as possible because the rules, the memory, the patterns compound every single session and you will always be ahead of someone who starts even a day after you. For my part, I'm going to make a lot more co-work tutorials. So, I recommend you bookmark this co-work playlist. See you on the next video. In the meantime, have a great one.