Claude – Your Thinking Partner

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Notes of Claude 101 Course

What is Claude ?

Claude is an AI assistant, a thinking partner.

  • Avoid helping humans engage in illegal or unethical activities.
  • Trained to aligned with human values 
  •  Think of claude as a thought partner who can help you tackle complex problem.
  • Can take direction on personality, tine and behaviour

Capabilities

  • Writing and content creation : social media posts, professional emails and complex reports.
  • Research and analysis : Explore research angles, compile findings and analyze data
  • Coding assistance : Can help you write debug and explain code across multiple programming languages
  • Problem-solving and reasoning : Complex cognitive tasks, mathematical problems, strategic thinking and analysis and research.
    • Works through the problem step by step
  • Learning new things : New Skill, exploring unfamiliar domains, complex challenges.
    • Adapt learning with style and pace

Writing Prompts

  • Setting Stage : Role and Objective.
  • Defining the task : Action to perform (Write, Analyze, Build etc)
  • Specifying rules : Style or tone, examples, reference to attach

4D Framework for AI Fluency : Four core competencies

  • Delegation
  • Description
  • Discernment
  • Diligence

What it can do ? Which model to use when ?

  • Can Analyze text and Visuals elements
  • Use Opus model for complex task (Mid 2026)
  • Use Sonnet for everyday tasks

What if response isnt what you want ?

  • Ask a follow up questions
  • Provide feedback
  • Redirect or restart

Common challenges and how to fix 

  • Claude’s response is too generic : Add more details
  • The response is too long (or too short) : Be explicit
  • Claude didn’t follow the format : Show, don’t just tell, give example
  • I got confident-sounding information that turned out to be wrong : Enable web search & Please validate
  • The tone isn’t right : Describe the tone in plain language

What is AI Fluency ?

Ability to collaborate effectively with AI tools

4D Framework for AI Fluency by Rick Dakan and Joseph Feller:

• Delegation — Decide what humans do, what AI does, and how to collaborate effectively.
• Description — Communicate clearly with AI to get better outcomes.
• Discernment — Critically evaluate AI outputs for quality and accuracy.
• Diligence — Use AI responsibly, ethically, and transparently.

Evaluating the response, because it helps in,

  • Understanding where claude adds most value 
  • Identify tasks where to provide more context
  • Build confidence for recurring tasks

You just need to,

  1. Gather examples
  2. Create test prompts
  3. Compare outputs
  4. Refine your approach

Claude Chat-Cowork-Code

Chat :

  • When you need to ask questions, brainstorm, draft.

Cowork :

  • Build for work that takes real effort, pull information from many sources, producing something.
  • Multitasking
    • Folder access
    • Scheduled tasks
    • Subagents
    • Dispatch
    • Projects
    • Browser use
    • Computer use
    • Plugins
    • Protected environment

Code

  • Works directly in your codebase : reading, writing and modifying
  • Can work in Local and Remote
  • 3 interaction mode : Ask, Code, Plan

What are Projects ?

Ideal for storing knowledge

When to use ?

  • Reference materials you’ll use repeatedly
  • Consistent requirement
  • Team collaboration needs

Creating Project

  • Set up your project
  • Add Project instructions : It tell how to behave across all conversation in this project
  • Build your knowledge base : You upload documents for reference. Upload files and also connect Google drive link. Name your files descriptively as claude uses file name to understand and retrieve the right information.

How projects handle large knowledge bases ?

RAG

What are artifacts ?

Artifacts are standalone, interactive outputs by Claude that appear in a dedicated window alongside the chat.

• Interactive — View and use content instantly instead of scrolling through long text blocks.
• Ready-to-use — Includes working websites, charts, documents, and more.
• Seamless workflow — Content is rendered, editable, and downloadable in real time.

Claude automatically creates an artifact when the content is:

• Significant & self-contained — Usually over 15 lines with complete context.
• Reusable — Something you may want to edit, refine, or reuse later.
• Standalone — Complex enough to make sense without the full conversation.
• Reference-worthy — Useful content you’ll likely revisit or download.

Common artifact types
  • Documents
  • Code Snippets
  • HTML Pages
  • SVG Images
  • Mermaid Diagrams
  • React components

You can explicitly mention to create as an Artifacts in the prompt.

What are Skills?

Skills are specialized instruction packages used by Claude to perform tasks more effectively and consistently.

• Expertise packages — Combine instructions, scripts, and resources for specific workflows.
• Dynamic performance — Claude loads them automatically when needed.
• Powering capabilities — Used for creating Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and PDF files.
• Repeatable workflows — Can standardize processes like variance analysis, brand reviews, or compliance checks.

Types of Skills

  • Anthropic Skills
  • Custom Skills

We need to enable skills to use it from Settings > Capabilities

How to generate custom skills?

  1. Start a new chat
  2. Answer Claude’s question
  3. Upload reference materials
  4. Save your skills
  5. See your skills in the customize tab on the left sidebar

Remember :

  • Project store Knowledge and Skills perform tasks.
  • Projects are a knowledge hub, Skills are procedural machines

Claude Skills Link: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/agent-skills/overview

What are connectors ?

  • Connectors transform Claude from an assistant into an informed collaborator
  • Connectors allow Claude to read information and perform actions on your behalf
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) powers connetors
  • 2 types of connectors : Web Connectors and Desktop Connectors

What are Enterprise Search ?

Enterprise Search in Claude lets teams search and synthesize company knowledge across tools like Slack, Google Drive, SharePoint, and Gmail.

• Unified knowledge search — Get answers from all connected company data in one place.
• Context-aware insights — Summarizes updates, policies, projects, and discussions.
• Source-backed responses — Claude cites sources for transparency and verification.
• Secure by design — Only accesses data users already have permission to view.

What is Research?

  • Research turns Claude from a chat assistant into a systematic investigator.
  • It explores topics from multiple angles and synthesizes information from the web and connected integrations.
  • Works like a skilled research assistant that gathers, cross-checks, and compiles insights quickly.
  • Saves hours of manual research by delivering comprehensive findings in minutes.
  • Best for deep-dive questions that need:
    • Multiple sources
    • Different perspectives
    • Cross-referencing
    • Actionable insights
  • Ideal when a simple or quick answer isn’t enough.

Other ways to work with Claude?

  • Claude.ai
    • Best for: General tasks, research, writing, analysis, file creation
    • Runs on: Web, desktop, and mobile apps
  • Claude Code
    • Best for: Software development, codebase navigation, git workflows
    • Runs on: Terminal/command line, IDE, or browser
  • Claude Cowork
    • Best for: Complex and multi-step tasks, research briefs, document creation, file organization, data analysis
    • Runs on: Desktop app (and mobile apps via Dispatch)
  • Claude / Claude Code in Slack
    • Best for: Team collaboration, meeting prep, quick contextual answers
    • Runs on: Slack workspace
  • Claude for Excel
    • Best for: Spreadsheet analysis, financial modeling, formula debugging
    • Runs on: Microsoft Excel sidebar
  • Claude for PowerPoint
    • Best for: Slide creation, presentation editing, formatting, design
    • Runs on: Microsoft PowerPoint sidebar
  • Claude for Chrome
    • Best for: Web research, email management, browser automation
    • Runs on: Chrome browser sidebar

Ending this with a note that there is a lot to explore about Claude, keep exploring, learning.

To do this, Course Follow link: https://anthropic.skilljar.com/claude-101

Thank you

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