
Build and Automate
Create your own skill, schedule it, and chain it into a pipeline that runs without you
What you'll learn4 objectives
- Build a custom skill from scratch using /skill-creator that automates a real, recurring task from your personal workflow
- Set up scheduled tasks that run automatically on a daily or weekly cadence with safety gates and monitoring
- Understand Dispatch for sending tasks from your phone and receiving results on your desktop
- Chain multiple skills into an automation pipeline with verification and publishing stages
1Promise Check-In
IntroWho processed their real department pile from Workshop 3? Two sentences on what was different about real data vs workshop data.
2 min
Promise Check-In
IntroWho processed their real department pile from Workshop 3? Two sentences on what was different about real data vs workshop data.
Who processed their real pile this week — not workshop data, actual Monday backlog? Two sentences each. Real data is messier; the process still works.
2From Consumer to Creator
IntroFor 3 workshops you used pre-built skills. Today you build your own — one that runs without you, on a schedule, for your specific recurring task.
3 min
From Consumer to Creator
IntroFor 3 workshops you used pre-built skills. Today you build your own — one that runs without you, on a schedule, for your specific recurring task.
Three workshops as consumer. Today, creator. Build one skill that solves YOUR problem, schedule it, chain it. By end of today something that used to need you happens without you.
3Build Your Skill
Try ItUse /skill-creator to build a custom skill for a real weekly task — one that takes 15-30 minutes manually and will run automatically after today.
25 min
Build Your Skill
Try ItUse /skill-creator to build a custom skill for a real weekly task — one that takes 15-30 minutes manually and will run automatically after today.
Pick a weekly task that eats 15+ minutes — repetitive, structured, low-judgment. /skill-creator walks you through five decisions in plain language. No code.
Download the data pack first. Study example-skill/SKILL.md — that's the shape your skill will take.
0/5 complete
4Break Your Own Skill
ExerciseYour skill works on clean data. Now deliberately break it — edge cases, missing columns, malformed inputs — before your stakeholders find the cracks.
20 min
Break Your Own Skill
ExerciseYour skill works on clean data. Now deliberately break it — edge cases, missing columns, malformed inputs — before your stakeholders find the cracks.
A skill that works on clean data is a demo. One that survives edge-cases.csv is a tool. Test → break → fix. Watch for silent failures — a crash is obvious; a skill that quietly adds a negative amount to a total is worse.
- Empty ID field
- Wrong date format (DD/MM/YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD)
- Negative amount
- Duplicate ID (same as row 1 of test-input)
- 500-character description
- Special characters (& < > " ')
- Date in 2027
- Completely blank row
- If any required field is blank, flag as NEEDS MANUAL REVIEW instead of crashing
- If date format is not YYYY-MM-DD, attempt to parse or flag it
- If amount is negative, include in 'Data Quality Issues' section with original value
- If row is completely blank, skip and note skipped row count in summary
5Scheduled Tasks
Step-by-StepA skill you have to remember to run is useful. A skill that runs itself is powerful. Set your skill on a timer — daily, weekly, or triggered — so it runs without you.
15 min
Scheduled Tasks
Step-by-StepA skill you have to remember to run is useful. A skill that runs itself is powerful. Set your skill on a timer — daily, weekly, or triggered — so it runs without you.
A skill that runs itself is the real unlock. Two scheduled tasks today — your custom skill weekly, a Jira briefing daily. Three on-demand tests before you turn recurring on.
Schedule my custom skill to run every Monday at 7am.
Input: the latest Excel file in my workspace folder matching [pattern].
Output: save the result to ~/Cowork-Workspace/reports/[skill-name]-{date}.docx.
Test it now as an on-demand run first.- Choose the trigger — match schedule to when the output is most useful
- Define the input — file must exist or MCP must be authenticated before run time
- Set the output destination — subfolder with date-stamped filenames
- Test on-demand first — 3 successful runs before enabling recurring
Schedule a daily task at 8am on weekdays.
Pull my Jira board updates from the last 24 hours.
Summarise: new issues, status changes, approaching deadlines.
Save to ~/Cowork-Workspace/briefings/daily-{date}.docx.- Verify MCP connection to Jira is active
- Test the briefing prompt on-demand
- Schedule for weekdays only
- Check output folder each morning
6Dispatch
Step-by-StepSend tasks to Cowork from your phone. Describe what you need in a message — Cowork runs it on your desktop using your full workspace — result waiting when you return.
10 min
Dispatch
Step-by-StepSend tasks to Cowork from your phone. Describe what you need in a message — Cowork runs it on your desktop using your full workspace — result waiting when you return.
Send a task from your phone. Your desktop Cowork runs it on your full workspace. Output waiting when you get back. Any moment with your phone becomes a moment you can kick something off.
0/4 steps complete
Open Claude on your phone
Type a quick prompt: 'Run /sun:jira-briefing for project GATE. Save to my workspace.'
Cowork on your desktop picks it up and runs it
When you return to your desk, the briefing is in your workspace folder
7Chain It
ExerciseWire your custom skill into a pipeline: skill → verification → publish. One command triggers the whole chain — output delivered without manual handoffs.
15 min
Chain It
ExerciseWire your custom skill into a pipeline: skill → verification → publish. One command triggers the whole chain — output delivered without manual handoffs.
One skill produces an output. A chain runs it through verification and publishing — a tool becomes a pipeline. Same produce-verify-publish shape works for every skill you ever build.
8Stress Test
SafetyFeed your pipeline deliberately messy data — missing columns, malformed inputs, conflicting values — and find out what breaks before Monday does.
10 min
Stress Test
SafetyFeed your pipeline deliberately messy data — missing columns, malformed inputs, conflicting values — and find out what breaks before Monday does.
Break it on purpose so you can patch it before Monday. Workshop data is designed to work. Monday data is not.
Fix Patterns
- Missing fields → add constraint: flag row under 'Missing Data', do not guess
- Duplicates → add step: check for duplicates by key column, process most recent only
- Date formats → add constraint: specify expected format, flag mismatches as errors
Missing required fields
Remove values from 5-10 cells in a critical column
Does it crash, skip rows, or hallucinate values?
Duplicate entries
Copy 3 rows with slightly different timestamps
Does it notice duplicates? Does the summary reflect inflated numbers?
Wrong date formats
Change 5 dates to MM/DD/YYYY or text format
Does it parse correctly? Does it misinterpret 03/04/2026?
Unexpected columns
Add a column the skill does not expect
Does it ignore, incorporate, or break?
9Skill Swap
ExerciseExchange skills with someone from a different department. If they can't understand it without your explanation, it needs a better description.
7 min
Skill Swap
ExerciseExchange skills with someone from a different department. If they can't understand it without your explanation, it needs a better description.
Pair with a different department. Hand over the skill name and a one-liner — no walkthrough. If they can't figure it out, your description needs work.
Pair up with someone from a different department.
Share your skill — name and one-sentence description only. No walkthrough.
They try it on their own data or a test file. 2 minutes.
Feedback — one specific improvement suggestion from your partner.
Iterate — decide whether to apply the feedback now or add to backlog.
10Monday Promise
PracticeTwo commitments: your custom skill runs on real data this week, and you schedule it so it fires automatically next Monday morning.
5 min
Monday Promise
PracticeTwo commitments: your custom skill runs on real data this week, and you schedule it so it fires automatically next Monday morning.
Two parts. Part 1: your skill runs Monday on real data. Part 2: it's scheduled so it fires without you next time. Next week you arrive and the output is already waiting.
Compliance
Monday at 9am, run /my-compliance-alert-summary on this week's screening export.
Daily briefing scheduled at 8am with Jira CDD updates.
Finance
Monday at 8:30am, run /my-finance-close-checklist on reconciliation data.
Daily task checks for unmatched items at 7am.
Inside Sales
Monday at 8am, run /my-sales-pipeline-check on the current pipeline.
Daily briefing pulls stale deals at 7:30am.
Customer Relations
Monday at 9am, run /my-support-triage on the weekend queue.
Daily task checks SLA-breaching tickets at 7am.
Steal This Prompt
Copy these prompts, customize the file paths to match your workspace, and use them in Cowork. Replace ~ with your actual home directory path if needed.
Daily Bank Reconciliation Skill
Weekly Case Summary Skill
Daily Alert Triage Summary Skill
Weekly Country Performance Digest Skill
Daily Ticket Triage Skill
Daily Data Quality Anomaly Skill
Daily Settlement Check Skill
Weekly Chargeback Ratio Monitor Skill
Weekly Pipeline Health Skill
Weekly Licence Audit Skill
Weekly Legal Request Tracker Skill
Daily Delivery Status Skill
Weekly Campaign Performance Skill
Daily Onboarding Pipeline Skill
Daily workflow automation platform Failure Summary Skill
Monthly Commission Reconciliation Skill
Weekly New Joiner Readiness Skill
Daily Non-Transacting Merchant Skill
Weekly Sprint Summary Skill
Weekly Recurring Issue Pattern Skill
Weekly Churn Early Warning Skill
Weekly Merchant Threshold Monitor Skill
Monthly Scheme Fee Reconciliation Skill
Daily Liquidity and Safeguarding Skill
Key Takeaways
Skills turn prompts into verbs — A prompt is a one-off request. A skill is a reusable workflow you can call by name, share with your team, and chain with other skills. Convert anything you run twice.
Scheduled tasks are fragile by default — Laptop sleeping, token expired, Claude Desktop not running. Every scheduled task needs a fallback: a manual retry recipe, a monitoring check, and a human owner. Automation that breaks silently is worse than no automation.
Chain skills instead of building megaskills — A five-step megaskill is hard to debug and harder to reuse. Three small skills wired together (triage → brief → publish) are easier to test, easier to share, and survive when one step changes.
Test on a small, dirty sample first — Clean test data hides the failures you will actually see. Run the skill on the messiest real file you have before scheduling it. If it breaks, you learn now, not at 7am on a Monday.
Keep, kill, or iterate weekly — Every Friday, review what the automation produced. Kill anything you stopped trusting. Iterate anything that produced three good outputs in a row but still needs a human tweak. Keep only what saves real time on real work.
Materials
Select your department using the picker in the top right to see the exercise files for this workshop. Click any file to preview it in place.
Safety Note
Scheduled tasks run while you are away. That is the point — and that is the risk. A skill that performs a file read is safe to automate; a skill that drafts an external-facing communication, moves money, edits a merchant record, or posts to a shared channel is not.
Rules that apply from this workshop forward:
- Never schedule a task that creates, sends, or modifies anything outside your personal workspace folder without a dry-run flag and a human review step
- Never grant a skill access to credentials, tokens, or API keys that are not already in your own scope
- Always name the output file with a timestamp so overwrites are obvious and recoverable (e.g.
briefing-{date}-{time}.docx) - Always include a fail-loud step: if the source data is empty, missing, or malformed, the task must produce an error document rather than a plausible-looking empty report
- Always test a scheduled task on-demand at least three times before enabling the schedule — silent failure is the most common failure mode