co-work-os

A workspace template for Claude Cowork — a folder structure and a small set of instruction files that turn Cowork from a cold-start assistant into a system that knows your team's rules, formats, and history the moment it opens a folder. It is not software, and it is not affiliated with Anthropic or with the unrelated "CoWork-OS" desktop application. There is nothing to install: you copy a folder, paste two instruction blocks, and start working.

Built for teams that get Claude chat + Cowork at work (no Claude Code), that share files on SharePoint/OneDrive, and that handle data where "who can see this?" is a real question — it was designed for HR/Total Rewards use cases, the harder case that makes every easier case work.

Scope: this is deliberately the foundation layer — folder structure, operating instructions, and confidentiality tiers. It intentionally does not ship Skills or plugins (Cowork's way of packaging repeatable procedures). Those are a valuable next layer you can add on top once the folder discipline is working; keeping them out makes this usable by anyone on day one, with nothing to install.

Why this exists

Point Cowork at a messy folder and you get messy results — every session starts from zero, outputs land wherever, and nothing your best analyst figured out last month is available to anyone else. The fix is not a bigger prompt. It's a file-system contract: