Chat, Cowork, and Code

Open the Claude desktop app and you'll see a mode selector with three tabs: Chat, Cowork, and Code. They're not three apps: they're three ways to work with the same Claude. Picking the right one is half the battle.

Chat

A conversation. Great for thinking out loud, asking questions, brainstorming, drafting text you'll paste elsewhere yourself. Nothing happens to your files. Chat answers; you act.

Cowork

A working session on your machine. You describe a task, Claude makes a plan, and then it actually does the work on the folders and apps you've connected. This is where messy folders get organized, reports get built, and multi-step busywork gets done for you. No terminal required.

Code

Built for software engineering: writing and editing code in a project, running it, working across a codebase. If you're not shipping code, you'll rarely open this tab.

Which do I reach for?

A quick gut check:

• Just need an answer or a draft to copy? Chat.
• Need Claude to do something to real files, data, or apps? Cowork.
• Building or changing software? Code.

Rule of thumb: if you'd otherwise do it yourself by opening files and clicking around, that's a Cowork job.

Next: running your very first task.