| Area | What’s in it |
|---|---|
| 🏗️ Workspace | Projects · Custom Instructions · Style Presets |
| 📥 Inputs | File Uploads · Images · PDFs · Spreadsheets |
| 📤 Outputs | Artifacts · Code Execution · File Creation |
| 🌐 Live data | Web Search · Research Mode |
| 🧠 Memory | Cross-chat memory · Past chat search |
| 🔌 Connectors | Google Workspace · GitHub · Slack · Notion · 40+ more |
| 🎒 Skills | PowerPoint · Excel · Word · PDF · Custom Skills |
A Project is a folder that gives Claude long-term context.
📁 Project: Q1 Marketing
│
├─ 📝 Custom Instructions (brand voice, audience, rules) ─┐
├─ 📚 Knowledge Files (brand guide, personas, past) │ shared by every chat
│ │
├─ 💬 Chat 1 — Blog draft ◀────────────────────────── ┤
├─ 💬 Chat 2 — Email campaign ◀────────────────────────── ┤
└─ 💬 Chat 3 — Social posts ◀────────────────────────── ┘
| Use case | Why a Project |
|---|---|
| 📘 Writing a book or thesis | Upload outline + chapters → Claude has the full context every time |
| 💻 Working on a codebase | Upload README + key files → no re-explaining the architecture |
| 🏢 Building a brand | Upload tone guides + customer personas → consistent voice |
| 📊 Ongoing research | Keep all interviews, sources, notes in one searchable place |
About me:
- I'm a [role] at [company]
- I'm building [project/product]
- My audience is [who]
How to help me:
- Default to concise, direct answers — skip the "Great question!" preamble
- When I share writing, give edits inline (don't rewrite everything)
- Push back if my reasoning has holes
- Ask 1–2 clarifying questions before starting big tasks
What's in this project:
- [list key files and what they are]
[!TIP] ⚡ Pro move: Periodically ask the chat “Based on what’s in this project, what’s the best next thing for me to work on?” — you’ll be surprised.
When you ask Claude to create something substantial, it puts the output in an Artifact: a side panel you can edit, iterate on, and even run.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 💬 Chat │ 📄 Artifact │
│ │ │
│ You: build me a habit tracker │ ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ │ Habit Tracker v1 │ │
│ Claude: Here's a React app... │ │ ☐ ☐ ☑ ☑ ☐ ☐ ☑ │ │
│ │ │ ☑ ☑ ☑ ☐ ☐ ☑ ☑ │ │
│ You: make the streak counter │ │ Streak: 4 days 🔥 │ │
│ bigger and orange │ └──────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ Claude: Updated! 🎨 │ [edited live in place] │
└───────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
| 1️⃣ Iterate without retyping | 2️⃣ Real interactivity | 3️⃣ Persists across messages |
|---|---|---|
| Edit in place — no copy/paste | React apps actually run | Survives the whole conversation |
📝 Markdown documents · 🐍 Code files · ⚛️ React apps · 🌐 HTML pages · 📊 Charts (Mermaid) · 🎨 SVG graphics
Build me a single-page React app: a habit tracker for the next 30 days.
- Each row is a habit, each column is a day
- Click a cell to toggle done/undone
- Show a streak counter per habit
- Use a clean, minimal design — Tailwind, no external deps
📁 Drop a file → Claude handles it natively. No conversion needed.
| File type | What Claude does with it |
|---|---|
| Reads text + analyzes charts visually | |
| 📝 DOCX / MD / TXT | Full text understanding |
| 📊 XLSX / CSV | Reads as a table, can compute |
| 🖼️ JPG / PNG / WEBP | Describes, transcribes, handwriting OCR |
| 💻 Code files | Syntax-aware reading |
| 📄 | “Here’s a 60-page contract. Summarize my obligations, flag anything unusual.” |
| 📊 | “Here’s last quarter’s sales CSV. Find 3 trends I’d miss at a glance.” |
| 🖼️ | “Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard. What’s the most concerning metric?” |
| ✍️ | “Here’s my draft. Read it once, then list the 5 weakest sentences with rewrites.” |
[!TIP] 💡 Pro move: combine Files + Projects. Upload reference material into the Project once, then start fresh chats that all have access — no re-uploading.
Toggle the 🌐 web search button and Claude searches the web in real time, citing sources inline.
✅ ENABLE search for: ❌ SKIP search for:
📰 News, current events 💭 Pure reasoning
💰 Pricing, stocks, weather ✍️ Brainstorming
🚀 Recent product launches 📝 Writing tasks
🔍 Verifying claims 📁 Files you've already uploaded
📚 Finding sources 🤐 Confidential strategy
For bigger questions, Research mode runs many searches across many minutes and builds a structured, sourced report.
💬 Today's chat ──remembers──▶ ┐
💬 Tomorrow's chat ◀──recalls───── ┼──▶ 🧠 Memory
💬 Next week's chat ◀──recalls───── ┘
Memory holds: your role · ongoing projects · preferences · recurring topics
You’re in control:
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets Claude talk to other apps.
🧠 Claude ──MCP──▶ 📅 Calendar · 📧 Gmail · 📁 Drive · 💬 Slack · 🐙 GitHub · 📓 Notion · 📋 Linear · 🎫 Jira · ☁️ Salesforce · ➕ 30+ more
You: Look at my calendar for next week and my open Linear tickets.
Suggest a daily plan that protects 2 hours of focused coding time.
That single message hits two connectors and produces a real plan tied to your real life. This is where Claude stops feeling like a chatbot.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 📊 PowerPoint Skill → Real .pptx decks │
│ 📈 Excel Skill → Spreadsheets + formulas │
│ 📝 Word Skill → Polished .docx reports │
│ 📄 PDF Skill → Form filling, merging │
│ 🛠️ Custom Skills → Your team's expertise │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
You don’t usually invoke these manually — Claude reaches for the right skill when the task calls for it. Asking for “a sales deck as a real .pptx” hits a different code path than asking for “slide content.”
📁 Project: My SaaS Startup
│
├─ 📝 Custom Instructions role, voice, don't-list
├─ 📚 Files brand guide, pricing, customer list
│
├─ 💬 Marketing chats + 🌐 Web Search
├─ 💬 Code chats + 🐙 GitHub connector
├─ 💬 Customer chats + 📧 Gmail connector
└─ 💬 Strategy chats files only · no search · private
You should now know how to:
👉 Next up: Module 05 — Claude Code — graduating from chat to agentic coding in your terminal.
| ← Previous | 🏠 Home | Next → |
|---|---|---|
| Module 03 — Prompt Engineering | Course README | Module 05 — Claude Code |