What you’ll know by the end of this check
- The four specialized Claude surfaces beyond claude.ai and what each is actually for
- When to reach for Claude Code versus the Claude desktop app’s Code tab
- Why Claude in Slack is one of the highest-ROI setups for engineering teams
Claude is one intelligence, many surfaces
The course opened with this framing and it pays to close with it: claude.ai is where most people start, but it’s not where most people end up. Claude shows up in your terminal, your Slack workspace, your browser sidebar, your Excel spreadsheet. The same intelligence, built into the places where the work already happens.
Here’s the map:
| Surface | Built for | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| claude.ai | Writing, research, analysis, file creation, general tasks | Web, desktop, mobile |
| Claude Code | Software development: write, run, test, commit | Terminal, IDE, or browser |
| Claude Cowork | Multi-step complex tasks: research briefs, docs, file organization | Desktop (+ mobile via Dispatch) |
| Claude in Slack | Team collaboration, meeting prep, hand-off to Code | Your Slack workspace |
| Claude for Excel | Spreadsheet analysis, formula debugging, financial modeling | Microsoft Excel sidebar |
| Claude for Chrome | Web research, inbox management, browser automation | Chrome sidebar |
Claude Code
This gets its own pre-flight checklist. The short version: Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that understands your codebase, writes and runs code, handles git, and takes on entire development workflows through plain language. It works in your terminal alongside your existing tools — you don’t switch interfaces, it comes to you.
The unlock that matters: once your repos are on GitHub, Claude Code can run remotely. Start a refactor, close the app, check back later. The session continues without your machine.
Claude in Slack
The use case that most teams underutilize: tag @Claude in a Slack thread — bug report, feature discussion, anything with technical context — and it can spin up a Claude Code session using that thread as the starting brief. You go from “here’s the problem in a message” to “Claude is working the fix” without leaving Slack.
Also useful for non-engineers: draft a reply to a long thread, summarize a channel’s last week, prep for a meeting by pulling together relevant conversations.
Requires GitHub integration (for the Code handoff) and Claude Code Web to be configured at the org level. If your org just moved to GitHub, this is one of the first integrations worth setting up.
Claude for Excel
Claude sits in a sidebar next to your spreadsheet. You describe what you want in plain language — it modifies the model, fixes formula errors, builds out new sections, creates pivot tables. The key use case: you inherited a complex multi-tab model you didn’t build, and you need to understand it and extend it without breaking anything. Claude reads the whole thing and explains it before touching it.
Claude for Chrome
A browser sidebar that can observe what you’re doing and act on it. Summarize articles, draft email replies, fill repetitive forms, navigate multi-step web workflows. Currently in research preview — Anthropic recommends low-stakes tasks and trusted sites. Financial services and adult content sites are blocked by default. High-risk actions (purchases, sharing personal data) require explicit permission.
Things to try right now (5 minutes)
Pick one surface you haven’t used yet from the table above and do the minimum viable setup: install the extension, or connect the Slack integration, or open the Excel sidebar. You don’t need to use it deeply yet — just get it installed while the friction of doing so is low.
The canonical version
Full official lesson at anthropic.skilljar.com/claude-101/383402 — includes short video demos for each surface.
Ready to verify this check?
Finish the official lesson, then come back and mark this check verified on your flight log.