This week in Claude

Cowork now runs in the cloud on Pro and Max

New Cowork tasks keep going when you close your laptop, but Claude can only reach your connected folders while the desktop app is open.

Try it: Start a longer Cowork task, close the laptop, and check on it later from the web or your phone.

Claude Code this week

Five releases (2.1.290 to 2.1.294) add Haiku 5.5, effort for sub-agents, a longer web search allowance and a one-step plugin install.

• 2.1.293: Claude Haiku 5.5 (claude-haiku-5-5) is now the default Haiku model on the Anthropic API.
• 2.1.292: Claude can run a sub-agent at the effort level you ask for, through a new effort parameter on the Agent tool.
• 2.1.292: claude plugin install --marketplace <source> adds the marketplace if needed and installs the plugin in one command.
• 2.1.290: web search in a session no longer ends after 200 calls; it refills at 100 calls an hour (CLAUDE_CODE_WEB_SEARCH_REFILLS_PER_HOUR sets the rate).
• 2.1.290: claude attach <name> and claude logs <name> accept part of a session name instead of its id.
• 2.1.290: a project's settings files can no longer turn Claude in Chrome on; use --chrome, /chrome or your user settings.
• 2.1.290: /code-review at medium effort now also reports cleanups and CLAUDE.md convention findings on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5.

Anthropic's guide to prompting Claude Haiku 5.5

It gives ready-to-paste text for the problems Haiku 5.5 shows, such as stopping early in long agent prompts, skipping a search, or calling code done without checking it.

Try it: If you give Haiku 5.5 a search tool, put today's date in the system prompt, as the guide suggests.

Claude now works inside Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

In public beta on all paid plans, a Claude sidebar can edit a doc as suggestions, write formulas, pivot tables and charts in Sheets, and build slides from your deck's own layouts.

Try it: Install Claude for Google Workspace from the Google Workspace Marketplace, open a file and choose Extensions > Claude > Open Claude; it asks before each edit unless you switch to "Accept all edits".

Claude Haiku 5.5 is out

It is the cheapest and fastest current model, from $0.10 / $0.50 per million tokens for prompts up to 100,000 tokens, with a 1M token context window and effort levels.

Try it: Run one high-volume job, such as classifying or summarizing, on claude-haiku-5-5 and compare cost and quality with what you use now.

Code written for Haiku 4.5 can break on Haiku 5.5

A thinking budget (budget_tokens), non-default temperature, top_p or top_k, and assistant prefill now return an error, and the same text counts as about 30% more tokens.

Try it: Before switching a Haiku 4.5 model id, read the migration guide linked from "What's new in Claude Haiku 5.5".

Max and Team plans now include monthly API credits

Max 5x gets $100 and Max 20x $200 a month to build your own apps and agents on the Claude API, but the credits don't cover Claude Code and don't roll over.

Try it: On a Max or Team plan, open Settings > Billing on claude.ai and link the Console organization you build in, since you can't change the link yourself later.

The SDKs can now run browser and computer use for you

In beta, the Python and TypeScript SDKs include a browser class and a computer class: you write one method per action against your own browser or desktop, and the SDK runs the loop, your URL policy and your approval step.

Try it: Nothing to do unless you build browser or desktop agents; if you do, start from the minimal example linked on the page.

Managed Agents' web_fetch only opens links already in the session

A URL that appears only in the system prompt, an attached document or another tool's output now returns a url_not_in_prior_context error, to make data leaks harder.

Try it: If your managed agent needs a fixed page, send its URL in the text of a user message.