1.Download the Daily Brief skill
Download the skill file. It is a single .skill file. You install it in the next step.
↓Daily Brief EA v0.1.02.Install the skill in Cowork
Upload the .skill file you just downloaded: Customise → Skills → + → Create a skill → Upload a skill, then choose your .skill file. On a personal Claude account you can do this yourself. On Team or Enterprise, if Skills are restricted, your Primary Owner enables them first.
3.Connect your email
Claude's own native connector. It only reads. No Composio, no custom connector.
- In Claude, go to Customise → Connectors.
- Find Gmail and click Connect.
- Sign in and approve in the browser window that opens.
On Outlook? Choose Microsoft 365 instead. Same path. It is fiddlier than Gmail. It needs a work Microsoft account, not a personal @outlook.com or @hotmail.com, and your IT person may need to approve Claude first.
Check it worked. Ask Claude: what came into my inbox yesterday?
Required4.Connect your calendar
Same again. Read only. The brief uses it to show your day.
- Go to Customise → Connectors.
- Find Google Calendar and click Connect.
- Sign in and approve.
On Outlook, skip this. Microsoft 365 already covers your calendar.
Check it worked. Ask Claude: what is on my calendar tomorrow?
Required5.Start a task on Opus 4.8
Open a new task in Cowork, set to Opus 4.8 on High effort. If you have an AI Business Brain project, start the task inside it so the brief is warmer.
6.Run your Daily Brief setup
One command sets it up. It confirms your connectors, asks what time you want the brief and your timezone, installs one morning scheduled task, and shows you a sample brief straight away.
Type this into Claude. Type /, start typing daily-brief, pick daily-brief from the list, then send.
/daily-brief7.Approve your scheduled task's permissions
Two minutes. Setup just installed one scheduled task, your morning brief. In the left menu click Scheduled, click into Daily Brief, click Run now, and approve the permissions it asks for. That one approved run clears the permissions, so it runs quietly from then on.
Scheduled tasks run while the Claude desktop app is open. Leave Claude running in the background if you want your brief on time.
Read-only, by design.
The Daily Brief only ever reads and reports. It never drafts, tags, files, sends, or changes your calendar. That's a hard rule written into the skill, not a switch. Honest note: Claude's native connectors themselves can do more than read; the guarantee comes from the brief only ever reading, never from the connector being incapable.
What to expect.
- ·Two minutes to set up. It is a briefing, not an onboarding.
- ·It reads your calendar and inbox each morning and reports. Nothing is changed or sent.
- ·It confirms the day, date, and current time at the top, so every "today" and "later" is anchored.
- ·Want it to draft your replies and act on your inbox? That is the full Executive Assistant, your next step up.