Claude Cowork: connectors in practice

What you’ll be able to do

• Explain how connectors differ from skills and plugins.
• Choose the service a task actually needs.
• Review requested access and check a source-backed result.

Your practice: find a workshop agenda

Use the interactive practice above before trying anything in your real account. The exercise uses fictional files. It does not connect a service or change your permissions. Your goal is to find an agenda, review a short summary against it, and recognize a claim that the source never supplied.

A connector gives Claude a route to another app or service. It may retrieve information or take actions, depending on the integration and your access. A skill supplies a repeatable method. A plugin can bundle capabilities for a role. Knowing which you need prevents unnecessary setup.

Start with a task, not a directory

Imagine the workshop agenda is in a shared document service. The useful first question is “Where is the source?” If the answer is a document, an unrelated messaging or calendar connection does not solve the problem. In the simulation, choose the document service and explain why.

Write the intended result before connecting anything: “Find the workshop agenda and summarize the confirmed arrangements with a source reference.” That is more reviewable than “Look through my accounts and help with the event.”

Understand the access

In Claude, the documented entry point is Customize > Connectors. Review a connector’s description and capabilities before starting its connection flow. The service’s actual consent screen determines the requested access; different providers offer different scopes. Workspace policies can also affect availability.

The lesson’s permission checkboxes are teaching categories, not a reproduction of a provider’s consent screen. Searching and reading are conceptually different from uploading, editing, or sending. A read-focused task does not automatically justify every write capability. If the actual integration requests broader access than you need, decide whether that integration suits your task.

A prompt saying “read only” is an instruction, not a replacement for the service’s access controls. Check the account and workspace you are authorizing. Connector access generally follows source-service permissions; shared-credential custom connections require separate scrutiny.

Find and inspect

Try the search box using the word workshop. Open a matching fictional file before judging the summary. Confirm that the result is about the right event, not simply a document with a similar name.

The sample notes confirm a library room and a Saturday event, but do not provide a start time. A generated sentence that supplies 10 a.m. is unsupported. The right response is to remove the time or confirm it with the organizer. Repeating the same claim through another assistant response does not add evidence.

Try a bounded brief

Find the workshop agenda in the document service I have explicitly connected.
Show the file title and source reference before summarizing.
Use confirmed facts only and mark missing details as not confirmed.
Do not edit files, send messages, change sharing, or create events.
If no matching source is accessible, tell me rather than guessing.

Your finished artifact

Your finished artifact: A completed worksheet recording the source you needed, the access you reviewed, a checked summary, and one unsupported claim you corrected. The simulation is sufficient to complete the learning exercise; connecting a real account is optional.

Review your work

Explain why the connector fits the task. Separate what you personally verified from what the assistant reported. Keep the source title and enough context to find it again. If the source changed, refresh your evidence before relying on an older summary.

A common mistake

Assuming that an integration’s name tells you everything it can do. Read its current description and the actual consent request. If you no longer need a connection, review removal in Claude and the service’s own connected-app settings as applicable.

Official guide

Interface guidance checked October 22, 2026. Anthropic: using connectors. This independent UAI class uses fictional examples; it does not grant access to any account.