cowork-ai-os

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Cowork AI OS is an open-source plugin that turns Claude Cowork into a configured AI teammate that knows your business, your voice, and your day. Built by Nuno Tavares for VCI cohort students and anyone who wants to install AI infrastructure instead of bouncing between chat tabs.

New in v0.10: Discovery layer. /browse-skills recommends community plugins for your business. /browse-connectors recommends MCP connectors to fill the gaps in your 7-bucket setup. Both read your about-me/business-brain.md and return ranked picks with reasoning + install instructions. Plus /onboard Phases 5 + 7 now invoke the recommenders to personalize your setup from day one. See the architecture brief and the v0.10 rollout post.

From v0.9 (still live): Progressive-disclosure architecture. Per-prompt "Start Up" latency under 3s. Auto-archiving memory. /optimize available any time Cowork feels slow.

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Quick links

Section	Who it's for
What you get	Everyone — what Cowork AI OS actually installs
⚠️ Mac users — read this first	Mac users (git prereq + known Mac issues)
⚠️ Windows users — read this first	Windows users (git prereq)
Install	The 4-step install
✅ Mac install (recommended): zip upload	Recommended path for all Mac users
The 9 phases	Time budget for onboarding
Troubleshooting	When things go sideways

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What you get

• A claude.md handbook Claude reads on every session
• Four identity files describing who you are, what you sell, how you write, and what you've decided
• Gmail + Calendar wired with safe permissions
• A clean folder system Claude routes outputs to automatically
• Built-in skills enabled and a custom voice-tuned skill
• A daily brief firing every weekday morning
• Three recurring upkeep events so the system doesn't drift

All built through 9 guided phases. Pause-friendly. Sample-first. Resumable across sessions.

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⚠️ Mac users — read this first

Use the zip install — it's the recommended path on Mac. Anthropic has open bugs affecting marketplace-based plugin installs in Cowork on macOS (#26951, #28125). The zip upload bypasses all of them and is confirmed working in #39400. The marketplace command in Step 3 below is documented as the secondary path — try it if you prefer, but if anything fails, jump to the zip path.

Before installing, open Terminal (Spotlight → "Terminal" → Enter) and run:

git --version

If you see a version number like git version 2.43.0 → you're good. Skip to the install below.

If you see "command not found" → install git first:

xcode-select --install

Click Install in the popup. Wait ~5 minutes for the download. Then come back here.

Note: macOS does not use "Git Bash" — that's Windows-only. You only need the underlying git tool, which xcode-select --install provides.

After installing git, fully quit Claude Desktop (⌘+Q — closing the window isn't enough) and relaunch before retrying the install.

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⚠️ Windows users — read this first

Open PowerShell (Start menu → "PowerShell" → Enter) and run:

git --version

If you see a version number → you're good. Skip to the install.

If you see an error → download Git for Windows from git-scm.com/download/win, run the installer, accept all defaults. This package includes both git and Git Bash.

After installing, fully quit Claude Desktop (right-click tray icon → Quit) and relaunch.

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Install

Prerequisites