Claude Basics
"Claude's model family isn't about power alone — it's about picking the right tool for speed, cost, and capability."
Anthropic's Claude comes in three tiers. Haiku is the fastest and cheapest — great for high-volume, simple tasks like classification or summarization. Sonnet is the daily driver — balanced performance for writing, analysis, and coding. Opus is the most capable — for complex reasoning, research, and tasks where quality matters more than cost. Newer versions (Claude 3.5, Claude 4) bring improvements across all tiers.
Skills and Plugins
"By itself, Claude is a reasoning engine. Skills are what connect that reasoning to the real world."
Claude Skills (also called plugins or tools) extend Claude's capabilities beyond text generation. Web Search lets Claude access current information. Code execution lets it run Python, check its math, and test solutions. File upload lets it read PDFs and spreadsheets. Calendar and email integrations let it take actions. Each skill gives Claude a new "hand" to interact with the world.
MCP — Model Context Protocol
"MCP is like USB-C for AI — a single standard that lets any AI connect to any tool."
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard created by Anthropic that defines how AI models connect to external tools and data sources. Instead of building custom integrations for each tool, developers build one MCP server that any compatible AI can use. This means Claude can talk to your file system, browser, Notion workspace, or custom databases — all through the same protocol. MCP is becoming the standard for AI-tool connectivity.
Cowork Flows
"The most effective way to use Claude on complex work isn't to hand it a task — it's to think alongside it."
Cowork flows are structured workflows where you and Claude collaborate on complex tasks. The pattern: (1) Break down the task together. (2) Claude drafts; you review and redirect. (3) Iterate section by section rather than end-to-end. (4) Use Claude to check Claude — ask it to critique its own output. This approach produces far better results than one-shot "write me a 50-page report."
Advanced Tricks
"The 20% of Claude tricks that produce 80% of the results — most users never find these."
Five tricks that dramatically improve Claude outputs: (1) XML tagging — wrap different parts of your prompt in <document>, <task>, <examples> tags to give Claude clearer signal. (2) Ask Claude to critique its own output before finalizing. (3) Use artifacts for long documents — they persist and can be iteratively edited. (4) Specify the format in extreme detail. (5) Tell Claude what NOT to do — constraints are often more powerful than instructions.
Claude in Workflows
"Claude isn't just a chat interface — it's an intelligence layer you can wire into any process."
Claude's API enables sophisticated integrations. Connect it to Notion to auto-summarize meeting notes. Wire it to Gmail to draft responses in your tone. Link it to GitHub to auto-review pull requests. Use Zapier or Make as the glue between Claude and your existing tools. The pattern is always the same: trigger → Claude does something smart → result goes somewhere useful.
You've mastered Claude Tips!
You now know the models, skills, MCP, cowork flows, and advanced tricks that power pros use every day.
Continue: Build Flows →