Claude 101: Desktop Setup & Your First Automations

This is the written version of a 40-minute working session. By the end you will have Claude Desktop installed, know what connectors and skills actually do, and have two automations running: an inbox that sorts itself and a digest waiting for you every morning.

No technical background needed. Copy the prompts as you go.

What you'll learn

• How to install and navigate Claude Desktop
• What connectors, skills, and plugins each do
• How to build an aboutme.md file so Claude remembers your context
• How to set up automatic email triage
• How to set up a daily morning digest
• What to disclose when you sell AI-made products

Before you start

• A Claude account you can sign in with
• A Gmail account, if you want the email automations (Calendar optional)
• About 40 minutes

Step 1 — Install and tour Claude Desktop

Download the app from claude.ai/download and sign in with your existing account. Desktop is what makes connectors, Cowork, and scheduled tasks work smoothly.

Three places you will use:

• Chat — regular back-and-forth conversation, same as the web app.
• Cowork — where Claude does multi-step work and runs scheduled tasks.
• Code — for technical and development work; good to know it is there.

Good to know: installing the app does not automatically give Claude access to your computer or accounts. It only sees what you upload or explicitly connect — nothing happens silently.

Step 2 — Connectors, plugins, and skills

• Connectors link Claude to your real tools — Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Slack. Find them in Settings → Connectors.
• Skills are reusable instructions for a task you do often — a saved playbook Claude follows automatically. Settings → Skills.
• Plugins are skills and other tools bundled together, often shared by your organization so a team uses one standard approach.

One-sentence version: connectors give Claude access to your tools, skills teach it a repeatable task, and plugins are skills packaged up for a whole team to share.

Step 3 — Build your aboutme.md

The single highest-leverage thing you will do today: give Claude durable context about who you are, so you stop re-explaining yourself every conversation.

I want to create an "aboutme.md" file that you can use as background
context in every conversation we have. Ask me questions one at a time
to build it until you are 95% sure you understand me — cover my name,
my role/title, what I'm responsible for day to day, my working style,
my current priorities, and anything I frequently need help with. Once
you have my answers, write the final file in clean markdown with headers.

Then say:

Please remember the key facts from the aboutme.md we just built, so you
have this context in future chats too.

Step 4 — How do I set up email triage?

Requires: Gmail connected first (Settings → Connectors → Gmail).

Set up a recurring scheduled task that triages my email inbox.

Each time it runs:
1. Look only at emails NOT already sorted into a category.
2. Apply category rules, in order, and label matching emails:
   - "[Category 1]": [trigger] -> label "[Folder 1]"
   - "[Category 2]": [trigger] -> label "[Folder 2]"
3. Anything left over goes in a label called "Other" to review.
4. Run this every [hourly / daily at 8am / weekday morning].

Ask me clarifying questions before you finalize the schedule.

The task lives in the Scheduled tab in Cowork. Run it early to test it instead of waiting for the first scheduled run.

Step 5 — Set up your daily digest

Now that email sorts itself, layer on a morning briefing so you never open the inbox cold.

Set up a daily scheduled task, run every morning at [time], that
gives me a short digest:
1. Summarize important emails from the last 24 hours, especially
   anything in a category that usually needs my attention.
2. List today's calendar events, in order, if Calendar is connected.
3. Note anything sitting in my "Other" folder for more than a day.
4. Keep it to one short, skimmable summary — headlines, not paragraphs.

Step 6 — Selling AI-made products: what to disclose

The simple test: if a reasonable customer would assume a photo, testimonial, or description is real or human-made when it is not, disclose it.

Why this matters now: the FTC treats undisclosed AI content as a potentially deceptive practice; states such as California and New York have their own rules; and the EU AI Act requires labeling for anyone selling into the EU. Marketplace policies (Etsy, Amazon) vary and change — check yours.

This is not legal advice, and rules are shifting by state and platform. Selling at real volume? Talk to someone qualified.

Recap

• Claude Desktop is installed, and you know what connectors, skills, and plugins each do.
• Your aboutme.md is built, so you stop re-explaining yourself every conversation.
• Your inbox sorts itself, and a digest is waiting for you every morning.
• AI disclosure is a live legal question — check your platform's policy before you sell.

Everything you built keeps running. Check the Scheduled tab in Cowork any time to view, pause, or edit it.