Summary  
This chapter explains how to orchestrate modular scheduled workflows and programmatically compose them into a live artifact—a dynamic dashboard that fetches and displays current data on each refresh.

General domain of usage  
Personal productivity dashboards


### Core Concept

You now have three scheduled workflows firing on their own. This chapter is where you compose them into a **single view**. Instead of checking three places for three outputs, you open one page. That page pulls the same live data your scheduled tasks pulled, arranged for at-a-glance consumption.

### How It Works (Step-by-Step)

**Step 1 - Apply the dashboard test**

Before you build, name the sections you want, and run each one through the _repeating, changing, scattered_ test from 5.1. For most knowledge workers, the following four sections pass all three.

- Today's calendar.
- Top 5 inbox priorities.
- This week's client commitments.
- Overnight Slack.

If a section only hits one or two, it doesn't belong on the dashboard. Leave it in its native app.

**Step 2 - Paste the build prompt**

The full prompt is in dashboard-build-prompt.md. Paste it into Cowork. It names the four sections, the refresh behavior, the visual rules, and asks Cowork to save the artifact so you can bookmark it.



Download File

**Step 3 - Watch Cowork plan the layout**

Cowork will propose a layout - grid, colors, order of sections. Approve or adjust. If you don't like the visual density, say so ("more compact") and it'll rework.

**Step 4 - The live artifact renders**

Cowork produces the dashboard as a live artifact - an HTML page hosted inside Cowork. Open it. It loads in your browser. Every section is populated with current data.

**Step 5 - Hit refresh**

Trigger a refresh. Watch the data update - new email in inbox, new meeting on the calendar, new Slack thread since last load. This is what makes it a live artifact and not a static page.

**Step 6 - Add one section live**

Prove the extensibility on camera. 
><b>"Cowork, add a section for overnight Slack mentions."

Watch it integrate. Refresh. Section is populated.

**Step 7 - Bookmark it**

The dashboard has a URL. Bookmark it. This is the page you open every morning from now on.

### Why This Matters

The dashboard is the _composition layer_ of the entire OS. It's where the pillars stop being separate features and start being a system. Every schedule feeds into it. Every skill you build can surface into it. It's the daily interface for the whole thing you've built across five sections.

### What Should Be Possible After This

- Apply the dashboard test to identify candidate sections for your own dashboard.
- Prompt Cowork to build a live artifact with named sections.
- Add sections to a live dashboard after the initial build.
- Refresh a live dashboard and confirm the data is current.
- Bookmark the dashboard as your daily starting page.


### The Dashboard Build Prompt

Full text is in dashboard-build-prompt.md. Copy it, adjust the section list to match what you actually check every day, paste into Cowork.


What is the main benefit of composing your scheduled workflows into a single dashboard view using Cowork, as described in the chapter?

You’ve used Claude in a chat window. You’ve typed a question, gotten an answer, copy-pasted the result, and done the work yourself.
That model of AI has a ceiling. This course is about what happens when you stop asking Claude for instructions and start handing it the job.
Cowork is Claude running in sync with your computer. It can read your files, edit them, create new ones, connect to your Gmail and Calendar and Slack, run tasks on a schedule while you sleep, and hand back finished deliverables instead of instructions.
By the end of this course, you’ll have a working Cowork operating system — a personal setup of skills, connectors, scheduled routines, and a live dashboard that handles your daily admin in the background, so you spend your time on the work only you can do.
This documentation accompanies the five-section video course. Every chapter follows the same structure — a clear definition, the core concept, a step-by-step walkthrough, why it matters, and what should be possible after watching.
Prompts, templates, and worked examples are included throughout.
What You’ll Build
By the end of the course, you’ll have a working  Cowork operating system  — a personal system of skills, connectors, scheduled routines, and a live dashboard, all wired together inside Cowork to handle your daily admin in the background.
Concretely, you’ll leave with:
A working understanding of Chat, Cowork, and Code — and when to reach for each.
A set of connectors authorized (Gmail, Calendar, Slack, Drive, or whatever you actually use every day).
At least one custom skill you wrote yourself, encoding a workflow you do every week.
Three scheduled tasks firing on their own — a morning brief, an end-of-day inbox triage, a Friday client recap.
A live dashboard that shows your entire day on one page and refreshes from your connectors every time you open it.
The recipes to keep extending your system as your work evolves.

Get your bearings. What Cowork is, how it thinks, how to set up a safe workspace, and where its limits are.

Building the Dashboard

Core Concept

How It Works (Step-by-Step)

Why This Matters

What Should Be Possible After This

The Dashboard Build Prompt