Home / Cowork, the digital colleague
Scheduled task or Computer Use: the order Cowork tries
Cowork first tries a connector, then the browser built into the desktop application, then as a last resort direct control of the screen, always in that fixed order, including for a scheduled task that runs unsupervised.
Cowork does not pick at random how to act on an external service. It follows a fixed cascade, always in the same direction: a connector first, the desktop application's browser next, direct control of the screen as a last resort.
Three steps, one single order
When a connector exists for the target service, Gmail, Google Drive or Slack for example, Cowork uses it directly, without opening a single web page. When no connector covers the tool requested, Cowork opens the browser built into the Claude Desktop application, or your own Chrome browser if Claude in Chrome is installed, and works within that page as someone sitting at their screen would. Only as a last resort, when the browser is not enough either, does Cowork take direct control of the screen: it clicks, types and navigates within desktop applications. This order is documented as such by Anthropic on 2 September 2026: if a connector is available, Cowork uses it; if not, it works within the built in browser; lastly, it uses screen control to interact directly with desktop applications.
Étape 1, connecteur trouvé : Cowork appelle le service directement.
Étape 2, aucun connecteur : Cowork ouvre le navigateur intégré.
Étape 3, navigateur insuffisant : Cowork prend le contrôle de l'écran.Screen control remains restricted
This third step is not open to every account. As of 2 September 2026, screen control is a research preview reserved for Pro and Max plans, and Team and Enterprise plans do not have access to it for now. Software with no connector and no accessible web interface therefore remains, on these last two plans, out of Cowork's reach until this status changes. Anthropic explicitly advises against opening screen control to banking, health or administrative applications, because Claude sees everything displayed on screen, including personal or sensitive data, and no safeguard there is perfect.
A scheduled task goes through the same cascade, unsupervised
A scheduled task triggers this cascade at the set time, with no human watching the screen at the moment it runs. The approval mode chosen when the task was created, described in choosing your approval level, applies at the moment of its creation; what that mode becomes across successive runs is not described by the documentation opened for this lesson, and should be checked on your own scheduled task rather than assumed.
This mechanism explains a behaviour that sometimes comes as a surprise: a connector added afterwards for a given service changes the path an already existing task follows, without its brief having had to be rewritten. The task finds a connector where it used the browser the day before, and Cowork jumps straight to the first step of the cascade.
The cascade Cowork tries, in order
A user schedules a Cowork task to relay the content of a shared table each morning to an internal messaging tool recently deployed within her organisation. No connector yet appears in the list offered for this messaging tool. At run time, Cowork opens the browser built into the desktop application and signs in to the messaging tool's web interface to post the message.
Write one sentence stating what this situation establishes, and one sentence stating what it does not establish.
What this establishes: This account establishes that Cowork moved to the browser step of its cascade because no connector was offered for this messaging tool at the moment it ran.
What this does not establish: It does not establish that direct control of the screen was ever needed, since navigating within the built in browser was enough to post the message.
The three most common miscalibrations
- Trop large Cowork now moves to direct control of the screen for any messaging tool that does not yet have a connector.
- Trop étroit This account proves nothing about the cascade Cowork follows, since only one task was observed on a single run.
- À côté This account shows that the recently deployed internal messaging tool would benefit from offering an official connector with Cowork.
- Cowork always tries a connector first, then the browser built into the desktop application, and only as a last resort direct control of the screen.
- Direct control of the screen remains a research preview reserved for Pro and Max plans, absent from Team and Enterprise plans for now, and Anthropic advises against opening it to banking, health or administrative applications.
- A scheduled task goes through the same cascade at the set time, with no human supervising it at the moment it runs.
- The approval mode is fixed when a scheduled task is created; what it becomes on later runs does not appear in the documentation opened for this lesson, to be checked on your own task.
- A connector added afterwards can make an already existing task skip a step of the cascade, without its brief having changed.
Open an existing scheduled task or create a short one, check its approval mode in the settings, then note whether the target tool has a connector before letting it run without you.
These points depend on an interface or a rule that may have changed since this was written. Check them on your own screen before relying on them.
- Check on your own account whether the screen control option appears in Cowork: it depends on your plan, Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise.
- Check on an existing scheduled task whether the approval mode chosen when it was created stays the one applied on later runs, this point is not documented.
Every datable claim in this lesson links here to the public text behind it. A source that does not open proves nothing.
- Anthropic, letting Claude use your computer in Cowork consultée le 2026-09-02
- Anthropic, scheduling recurring tasks in Claude Cowork consultée le 2026-09-02