Visible in the Listing, Zero Hits by Name: Counting Japanese Filenames With Split Dakuten
In a folder I gave Cowork, Japanese filenames were missing from name searches. Counting about 19,000 entries turned up 17 names with decomposed dakuten. Here is how I counted and fixed it.
I Put a Ten-Line Promise File at the Top of the Folder I Gave Cowork
I kept retyping the same cautions every time I asked Cowork for help. One CLAUDE.md file at the top of the folder settled it. Here are the three things worth writing, how to check it is being read, and how to cut it back when it grows.
I Stopped Making Cowork Read My Whole Troubleshooting Notes — Pulling One Section by Number Cut 105 KB to 1.5 KB
A record of turning a 105 KB file of web-ops troubleshooting notes into something you query by number. My first extraction script could reach only 30 of 120 numbers, and #70 came back as zero bytes. The fixed awk, a zero-byte check, and measured section sizes are all here.
The Night I Halved the Instructions I Load Every Time: Three Drawers Before Any Cutting
The longer an instruction file grows, the more rules slip through. Here is how I sorted what gets loaded every time into keep, move, and delete, plus a small script that measures each heading.
Before You Trim a Scheduled Task's Runbook, Count How Many Times It Gets Re-read
I cut 13 KB from a scheduled task's preloaded docs, and recounted by re-reads it was worth about 1.3 tool calls. Here is the ledger that counts re-reads, and a shell helper that records bytes during a run.
Will Your Cowork Scheduled Task Still Run Next Saturday?
A definition that runs once and stops, two fire times packed into one task, a weekday that quietly emptied after an edit. Cowork schedules can go missing without leaving a single log line. Here is a working audit that compares what you defined with what you meant.
Write Access Came Third: The Order I Hand Folders to Cowork
When I connect a folder to Cowork I open it in three steps: read-only, a place where new files may appear, then write access. Here is the line I drew with a client's asset folder, and the three things I settle before connecting.
How I decide between Cowork and Claude Code: by where approvals land
Cowork and Claude Code run the same Claude, so I stopped comparing features and started sorting work by one question: can a human approval interrupt this step, or not? Here is the line I draw and the code I keep on the unattended side.
The scheduled task that only ran on days my desk was awake
Cowork scheduled tasks run remotely by default, but the moment one needs a local file or app, it runs only on your machine. Here is how the last field in the setup dialog decides that, and the three questions I now answer before creating a task.
What you keep the agent from walking matters more than what you hand it
Searching one connected Cowork folder for the same word gave three different answers. Here is what the default search silently left out, and how to measure a folder's scan scope once before you hand it over.
Using Aqua Voice for Cowork and Everyday Messages — What Changed When I Started Speaking Instead of Typing
I use the dictation app Aqua Voice for briefing Cowork and for messages and email on my iPhone. Notes on how the texture of my writing changed before its speed did, how Mac and iPhone use differs, and what still gets in the way.
Until I planted a failing sample, my unattended checks had never once failed
A check running on an unattended schedule lost its exit code to a single pipe added for readable logs. I measured where the status disappears and built a small harness that checks the checker.