Course IntroductionLesson 6 of 6

Use Cases for All Tools

Four Claude products cover different kinds of work. Each section below walks through three situations with a sample prompt and a typical result.

Claude Chat

Browser chat at claude.ai. Good for drafting text, short explanations, and summarising material you paste in.

Declining a meeting by email

claude.ai

Write a short, polite email declining a meeting request. The meeting is about a project I am not involved in.

Subject: Re: Meeting Request Hi [Name], Thank you for the invitation. I am not involved in this project, so I would not be the right attendee. [Colleague name] may be a better fit. Best regards, [Your name]

Edit names and send. No special syntax in the prompt.

Understanding a topic quickly

claude.ai

Explain compound interest in plain English with one simple example.

Compound interest is interest earned on prior interest, not only on the original amount. Example: £1,000 at 10% per year becomes £1,100 after year one. In year two you earn 10% on £1,100 (£110), not on £1,000 — so the total is £1,210.

Add “keep it very simple” or “assume I know basic maths” to set the level.

Pulling key points from a long article

claude.ai

Summarise this article in 5 bullet points. [paste article text here]

• The study covered 10,000 participants across 12 countries. • Sleep loss over six hours raised error rates by about 40%. • Twenty-minute naps partly offset the deficit. • Performance dropped fastest after day three of poor sleep. • Researchers suggest 7–9 hours per night for adults.

Works on pasted reports, notes, or any text you own the rights to use.

Use Chat when the job stays in the browser — writing, explaining, or Q&A with no project files involved.

Claude Code

Run claude in a project folder. Claude reads and edits files on disk.

Adding validation to a form

Terminal — Claude Code

# Inside your project folder

$ claude

> What would you like me to do?

You: Add validation to the contact form in contact.js — valid email, name at least 2 characters

• Reading contact.js

• Locating submit handler

• Writing validation

• Updating contact.js

✓ Validation on lines 18–26. Email regex and name length check. No other files changed.

Changes land in the real file. Review the diff before you commit.

Tracking down an intermittent bug

Terminal — Claude Code

# Inside your project folder

$ claude

> What would you like me to do?

You: The checkout total sometimes shows as NaN. Find the bug and fix it.

• Scanning cart.js, checkout.js, pricing.js

• Issue in pricing.js line 44: parseFloat on undefined

• Adding guard before parseFloat

✓ Fixed pricing.js line 44: if (!price) return 0.

Describe the symptom; Claude searches across files in the repo.

Adding tests for existing code

Terminal — Claude Code

# Inside your project folder

$ claude

> What would you like me to do?

You: Write unit tests for calculateDiscount in utils.js using Jest

• Reading utils.js

• Listing edge cases

• Creating utils.test.js

✓ utils.test.js added with six cases — normal input, zero discount, 100% discount, negative values.

Run npm test locally to confirm they pass.

Use Code when the output must live in your repository — features, fixes, tests, or refactors.

Skills & Plugins

Optional add-ons inside claude.ai — web search, document upload, and other workflows you enable per chat.

Checking a current library version

claude.ai

Web Search active

What is the current stable version of React and when was it released?

Searched the web

React 19 shipped 5 December 2024. Notable items: Server Components support, the use() hook, and clearer hydration errors. Install with npm install react@19.

Standard chat may not know today's release notes; the search plugin fetches them.

Questions about an uploaded PDF

claude.ai

Document Reader active

Here is our Q1 sales report (PDF). What are the top 3 products by revenue?

Read uploaded file

From the Q1 report: 1. Product A — £142,000 (34%) 2. Product B — £98,500 (23%) 3. Product C — £76,200 (18%) Together these are 75% of Q1 revenue.

Upload the file in the same thread as your question.

Building a quiz from course notes

claude.ai

Quiz Builder active

Create a 5-question multiple-choice quiz from the photosynthesis lesson I uploaded.

Read file, draft quiz

1. Primary energy source for photosynthesis? a) Water b) CO₂ c) Sunlight ✓ d) Oxygen 2. Gas released as by-product? a) CO₂ b) N₂ c) H₂ d) Oxygen ✓ [3 more questions in the full output]

Useful when you already have source material and need a structured output format.

Use plugins when chat alone is not enough — live data, file upload, or a fixed output template.

Claude Cowork

Desktop app for jobs that span files, folders, and the browser — rename batches, fill forms, collect data from several sites.

Renaming many image files from a spreadsheet

Claude Cowork

Task running

Instruction: “Rename images in /products as product-[id]-[colour].jpg using IDs and colours from products.csv”

✓Opened /products

✓Read products.csv (30 rows)

✓Renamed 30 images

✓Checked filenames

✓ 30 files renamed. Backup saved in /products/backup.

One instruction replaces repetitive rename work.

Filling a web form from a CV

Claude Cowork

Task running

Instruction: “Open careers.example.com and fill the application form using my-cv.pdf”

✓Read my-cv.pdf

✓Opened careers.example.com

•Filled name, email, experience

○Attach CV file

✓ Form populated — review fields before you submit.

You keep final approval on submit.

Weekly pricing snapshot from competitor sites

Claude Cowork

Task running

Instruction: “Visit pricing pages for Competitor A, B, and C. Record plan names and prices in pricing-report.xlsx.”

✓Opened competitor-a.com/pricing

✓Opened competitor-b.com/pricing

✓Opened competitor-c.com/pricing

✓Wrote pricing-report.xlsx

✓ pricing-report.xlsx saved — 3 sites, 9 plans.

Re-run the same instruction on a schedule if you need recurring reports.

Use Cowork when you would otherwise click through several apps yourself — bulk files, browser steps, or multi-source collection.

Quick reference

Match the task type to the product.

Task	Product
Write email, summary, or doc	Chat
Explain a topic or answer a question	Chat
Change code in your repo	Code
Add or update tests	Code
Look up current information online	Web Search plugin
Analyse an uploaded PDF or sheet	Document plugin
Rename or organise files in bulk	Cowork
Fill forms or drive the browser	Cowork
Pull data from several websites	Cowork

Before you continue

Chat — browser writing and Q&A.
Code — edits inside your project.
Plugins — live data, uploads, structured outputs.
Cowork — multi-step work on your machine.
Next lesson: pick the right tool for a given task.

What's Next

Choosing the Right Claude Tool — when to use Chat, Code, plugins, or Cowork.

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Prerequisites

Choosing the Right Claude Tool