On February 25, 2026, Anthropic shipped one of the most requested Claude Cowork features: scheduled and recurring tasks. Instead of opening Cowork every morning to kick off the same workflows, you can now set them up once and let Claude run them on a cadence you choose.
This guide covers how scheduled tasks work, how to set one up, and the workflows worth automating first.
How Scheduled Tasks Work
When you schedule a task in Cowork, Claude saves your prompt as the task's standing instructions and runs it at the interval you set. Each run is a fresh Cowork session — Claude reads the relevant files, connectors, and context at execution time, completes the task, and saves the output.
You can schedule tasks at any of these cadences:
- Hourly
- Daily (at a time you choose)
- Weekdays only
- Weekly (on a specific day)
- On demand (run manually, but saved as a reusable one-click task)
One important limit: scheduled tasks only run while your computer is awake and Claude Desktop is open. If your computer sleeps through a scheduled run, Cowork will execute the task automatically the next time Claude Desktop opens.
Setting Up a Scheduled Task
Method 1: Use the /schedule command
Start any Cowork task and type /schedule to turn it into a recurring one:
/schedule
Cowork will ask you:
- What cadence? (hourly / daily / weekdays / weekly / on demand)
- What time? (for daily and weekly tasks)
- Where to save the output?
Once confirmed, Claude saves the task and it will run automatically from then on.
Method 2: Create from the task panel
- Open Claude Desktop and go to Cowork
- Click + New task in the upper left
- Write your task prompt as you normally would
- Before running, click Schedule this task
- Choose your cadence and confirm
Editing or Deleting a Scheduled Task
All scheduled tasks appear in the Scheduled tab in the Cowork sidebar. Click any task to edit its prompt, change the cadence, or delete it.
6 Workflows Worth Scheduling
1. Morning Briefing
Prompt:
Check my calendar for today and tomorrow. Summarize any meetings, deadlines, or prep I need to do.
Then check Slack for any unread messages that need a response. Write a briefing in ~/Documents/Daily/morning-brief-{date}.md
Schedule: Weekdays, 7:30 AM
What you get: A ready-to-read briefing that takes Claude 2-3 minutes to assemble but would take you 20.
2. Weekly Status Report
Prompt:
Review the files in ~/Projects/[project-name]/ that were modified this week.
Summarize what was completed, what's in progress, and flag anything that looks blocked or overdue.
Write a status report to ~/Reports/weekly-status-{date}.md
Schedule: Fridays, 4:00 PM
What you get: A draft status report ready to review before the weekend.
3. Competitor & Industry Monitoring
Prompt:
Using the web, check for any news this week about [competitor names] and [industry keywords].
Summarize the 5 most relevant stories with a brief note on why each matters.
Append to ~/Research/competitive-intel.md
Schedule: Weekly, Mondays
Requires: Web connector enabled in Cowork
4. Inbox Triage
Prompt:
Check my email for messages received today.
Flag anything that needs a response within 24 hours.
Drafts replies for any flagged emails where the response is straightforward.
Save drafts to ~/Inbox/drafts-{date}.md
Schedule: Weekdays, 8:00 AM
Requires: Microsoft 365 or Gmail connector
5. Data Pipeline Update
Prompt:
Open ~/Data/weekly-export.csv (updated by our data team every Monday).
Calculate the week-over-week changes for the key metrics columns.
Update the summary table in ~/Reports/kpi-dashboard.md with this week's numbers.
Schedule: Mondays, 10:00 AM (after your data team updates the CSV)
6. End-of-Day Wrap-Up
Prompt:
Review my Notion tasks for today. Mark completed items and roll over any incomplete ones to tomorrow.
Write a 3-line summary of what got done today to ~/Journal/work-log-{date}.md
Schedule: Weekdays, 5:30 PM
Requires: Notion connector
Tips for Writing Good Scheduled Prompts
Be explicit about output location. Claude needs to know where to save results. Always include a file path like ~/Documents/Reports/filename-{date}.md. Use {date} as a placeholder — Cowork replaces it with the current date at run time.
Scope the task clearly. Scheduled tasks that are too broad ("summarize everything") tend to run long and consume many tokens. Narrow the scope: "files modified this week," "messages received today," "the top 5 items."
Test before scheduling. Run the task manually first to confirm it produces the output you want. Then add /schedule to turn it recurring.
Use {date} and {week} placeholders. These let you create uniquely named output files for each run without editing the prompt.
Current Limitations
- Requires Claude Desktop to be open. There is no cloud-based execution. If your laptop is closed, the task will run when you next open the app.
- Token usage. Complex scheduled tasks can consume 50–100+ messages of context. Monitor usage if you're on a plan with limits.
- No notifications (yet). Cowork doesn't currently send alerts when a scheduled task completes or fails. Check the Scheduled tab to see run history.
Getting Started
The fastest way to experience scheduled tasks is to set up a morning briefing. It takes about 5 minutes to configure and immediately shows what recurring automation feels like.
- Open Claude Desktop → Cowork
- Start a new task and write a morning briefing prompt for your workflow
- Run it once manually to verify the output
- Type
/scheduleand set it for weekday mornings
From there, add one scheduled task per week until your recurring work largely runs itself.
For the full list of what Cowork can do, see the Plugins page.