POLR AI Getting Started Series · 2 of 5

Getting started with Claude Cowork, on your actual files.

A hands-on course for built environment teams who want Claude working on real project folders, not in a blank chat window. Set up Cowork, run four AEC workflows, walk away with a workflow your team uses again next week.

About 110 minutes, self paced. Pairs with the Getting Started with Claude foundation. Designed around AEC document work: submittal logs, sub bids, RFIs, closeout binders, owner status memos.

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Reading time · ~110 minBuilt for AEC opsPOLR AI Getting Started Series · 2 of 5

What you will cover

01Cowork in plain EnglishFolder-scoped access. What Cowork sees, what it does not, and how it differs from Chat or Projects.02Set up your first workspacePick the right folder. Folder hygiene that turns Cowork from a toy into a workhorse.03Four AEC workflowsSub-bid comparison, owner status memo, closeout binder, marketing case study. End to end.04Hand off and governSave your prompts, brief a teammate in 15 minutes, and set the privacy boundary.05What is nextWhere Cowork stops being enough, and which resource you read after this one.

Module 01 · Foundation

What Cowork is, and what it is not.

Cowork is Claude with read and write access to a folder on your machine. That single change is what makes the work feel real. Before the workflows, get the mental model right.

The folder is the workspace

You point Cowork at one folder. Cowork can read every file inside it, write new files into it, and edit the files that are there. It cannot see your desktop, your other projects, your inbox, or anything outside that folder. That boundary is the whole product.

The right folder is one you would already share with a new project engineer on day one. A live project folder with the submittal log, the RFI tracker, the meeting minutes, the spec section index, and the owner correspondence. The wrong folder is your entire C drive.

Cowork versus Chat versus Projects

Chat. A blank conversation. You paste in what Claude needs. Best for thinking and quick drafts.
Projects. A workspace inside Claude with persistent instructions and uploaded reference files. Best for a recurring lane of work where the inputs are stable.
Cowork. A workspace pointed at a real folder on your computer. Claude reads and writes the files in place. Best when the work is the documents, and the documents change.

Rule of thumbIf the answer is in your head, use Chat. If the answer is the same every time, use a Project. If the answer lives in a folder of files that change every week, use Cowork.

The privacy boundary, in one paragraph

On the desktop app, Cowork sees the folder you point it at and nothing else. The work happens on your machine, it is not shared with other teams, and access does not persist after you close the workspace. If you want a file outside the folder, drag it in. If you want a file out, ask Cowork to put it somewhere else and confirm.

One qualifier your IT lead will ask about, so know it before they do. Cowork also runs on the web and on mobile now, and on those surfaces sessions execute remotely rather than on your machine. That is what lets a scheduled task keep running with the laptop shut. It is a different trust posture than the desktop app, and it is the right thing to raise in the authorization conversation rather than discover afterward.

Module 02 · Setup

Set up your first Cowork workspace.

Fifteen minutes, start to first useful answer. The folder you pick today is the folder you will live in for the rest of the course.

Install and point at a folder

setup-cowork.sh

01Install the Claude desktop app from claude.com/download.
02Open Cowork. Point it at one live project folder.
       Pick something with real documents you would touch this week.
03Confirm Cowork can see the folder by asking it to list contents.
 
you ▸List every PDF, Word doc, and Excel file in this folder,
       grouped by subfolder. Tell me what you think this project is.
 
# If Cowork's read of the project matches yours, you are set up.
# If it does not, your folder structure is the first thing to fix.

Folder hygiene for AEC projects

Cowork is only as good as the folder you point it at. Most AEC project folders were built for humans clicking around. They need a small amount of structure to work for an assistant.

One folder per active project. Top level subfolders for 00_Owner, 01_Contracts, 02_Submittals, 03_RFIs, 04_Meetings, 05_Field, 06_Closeout.
File names with dates first, then a verb, then a noun. 2026-08-14_Submittal-Log.xlsx beats Final_v3_USE_THIS.xlsx every time.
One source of truth per artifact. If the submittal log lives in three places, Cowork will pick the wrong one half the time.

Cowork only sees the folder you point it at. Treat that folder like a workspace. The team that names folders well gets ten times the value of the team that does not.

POLR observation

Module 03 · Workflows

Four workflows that pay back today.

Each workflow uses files you already have. Run them in order or pick the one closest to your week. Every one ends with a real artifact saved back to the folder.

Workflow 1. Sub-bid comparison from a folder of quotes

Drop a stack of PDF and Excel quotes into the folder. Cowork reads them, normalizes the line items, and produces a leveled comparison spreadsheet you save back to the folder.

workflow-1.txt

you ▸Read every file in ./bids/.
       Build a leveled comparison: one row per scope item, one column per sub.
       Flag scope gaps, alternates, and exclusions. Save as
       2026-08-14_Bid-Leveling.xlsx in the project folder.

Workflow 2. Owner-facing status memo

Cowork reads the meeting minutes folder, the RFI log, and the last two weeks of email exports, and produces a one page Friday status memo in your firm's voice.

workflow-2.txt

you ▸Draft the Friday owner status memo for this project.
       Source: ./04_Meetings/, ./03_RFIs/, the last two weeks of email exports
       in ./inbox/. Match the layout in
       ./templates/Owner-Status-Template.docx.
 
# One page. What changed, what is at risk, what we need a decision on.

Workflow 3. Closeout binder index

Cowork reads the closeout folder, builds an O&M index in the spec section order, flags missing submittals against the original log, and drafts a punch list summary the project engineer can walk.

workflow-3.txt

you ▸Build the closeout binder index for this project.
       Walk ./06_Closeout/. Cross reference ./02_Submittals/Submittal-Log.xlsx.
       Output: an O&M index in spec section order, a missing-items list,
       and a punch list summary grouped by trade.
       Save as ./06_Closeout/00_Index.md.

Where it pays offThe first run flushes out the missing items the team was going to discover at the worst possible moment. Every run after that is twenty minutes instead of two days.

Workflow 4. Marketing case study from closeout

POLR's signature pattern. Cowork reads the closeout folder, the owner correspondence, and any project photos with captions, and drafts a case study in your firm's voice ready for the marketing lead to edit.

workflow-4.txt

you ▸Draft a case study from this closeout folder. 600 words.
       Voice: confident, specific, no superlatives. Anchor on what was hard.
       Match the structure in ./templates/Case-Study-Template.md.
       Pull two pull-quote candidates from the owner correspondence.
       Save as ./marketing/Case-Study-Draft.md.

Module 04 · Hand off

Save your prompts. Brief your team.

A workflow that only you can run is not a workflow. The last fifteen minutes of the course is making what you just built portable.

Save the prompts you used

Drop the four prompts above into a ./prompts/ folder inside the project. Name them by workflow. Next week, anyone on the team can run the same workflow without re-deriving the prompt.

Brief a teammate in fifteen minutes

Five minutes on what Cowork is and what it sees.
Five minutes on the folder convention.
Five minutes running one workflow together on a live project.

Three AEC use cases this unlocks

The workflows above scale into the recurring patterns where Cowork pays back fastest.

Submittal review and RFI drafting.

Cowork holds the project's submittal log and the RFI history. It drafts submittal reviews in the spec format the firm already uses, flags missing entries, and surfaces answered RFIs from prior projects so the team stops re-asking the same questions. Days of routine paperwork compress to hours.

Scope review and bid leveling for subcontractor proposals.

Cowork holds the Excel scope packages, prior leveling notes, and the firm's standard scope template. It surfaces gaps and inconsistencies between subs before buyout, drafts the leveled abstract, and produces trade packages that match the firm's procurement format.

Daily field reports, meeting notes, and owner-facing status updates.

Cowork holds the firm's report templates and the last few weeks of notes. It drafts the daily report, the meeting summary, and the Friday owner-facing status memo in the firm's voice, ready to edit and send. The three documents that used to take an hour each now take fifteen minutes combined.

Module 05 · Momentum

When Cowork stops being enough.

Cowork is the daily workhorse. The next two resources extend its reach. Skills turn the prompts you just saved into a firm-wide playbook. Connectors and Plugins let Claude reach into the tools where work that is not in the folder still lives.

Two ways Cowork is already more than a folder

Cowork is no longer only the desktop app pointed at a project folder. Three capabilities extend its reach in ways that matter for AEC operators.

Dispatch is Cowork on your phone, briefing you before you walk in. It schedules and triggers Cowork sessions from a phone-side companion. You can have Claude check email every morning, pull metrics every week, or spin up a full Cowork session for a report. The practical version: a morning brief on your phone at 5:45am with overnight RFIs, schedule changes, and the open items for the 6am sub call, sourced from the project folder you set up earlier in this course. Two conditions to know before you promise it to anyone: Dispatch needs Pro or Max, and it needs the desktop app awake and open on the machine that holds the folder. The PM who shuts the laptop at night does not get the 5:45am brief.

Computer Use is Cowork driving GUI apps when the work is not in the folder yet. It lets Cowork directly control your Mac or Windows desktop to fill forms, navigate GUI-only apps, and stitch cross-app workflows together. The practical version: filling out a Procore submittal form Cowork could not previously touch, using the same folder context it already has. Three conditions again, and they matter more here because you are handing over the mouse. It is still a research preview, it runs on Pro and Max, and it has to be switched on in desktop app settings with the app awake. Claude asks permission before each new app it touches.

Scheduled tasks are the quiet one, and probably the one your firm uses most. A Cowork session can run on a recurring schedule without anyone starting it: the Friday owner memo drafted before you sit down, the closeout index rebuilt every Monday. Pair it with the prompts you saved in Module 04 and the workflow stops depending on someone remembering to run it. Skills, plugins, and connectors are all managed together under Customize, and Team and Enterprise admins can control which plugins the firm is allowed to install.

Want Cowork running on your three biggest projects in 30 days?

POLR Coaching sets up Cowork workspaces with your team on real, current projects. Folder conventions, prompts, hand-offs, and the first two case studies done with you, not lectured at you.

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Part of the POLR AI Getting Started Series. POLR AI is an independent partner. We are not affiliated with Anthropic.