Configuration

The organization-wide Cowork policy — general availability, permissions, customization, tools, network, and privacy settings.

Written By Kristė Vagnerytė

Last updated About 1 hour ago

Admin (Cowork) → Configuration

The Configuration tab holds the organization-wide policy (Cowork configuration) delivered to Claude Desktop through the Cowork bootstrap. Saving publishes changes immediately (Published status), though most changes only take effect in new sessions.

At the top: the last-saved date, the total setting and category count (e.g. “24 settings · 6 categories”), a Recommended defaults button (resets to recommended values), and Save changes. A Search settings box lets you jump straight to a specific setting.

Note: infrastructure-level items — inference credentials, gateway URLs, and organization plugin delivery — are server-managed and can’t be changed here. Managed MCP servers are configured on the External connectors tab.

Settings are grouped into six categories.

General

Availability, organization guidance, and user-facing identity:

  • Enable Cowork – whether the Cowork surface shows in Claude Desktop

  • Organization instructions – text (up to 3000 characters) appended to the system prompt for every new Chat, Cowork, and Code session. This is guidance, not an enforcement boundary

  • Deployment display name – the provider label shown in the desktop sidebar and account menu (e.g. “Cowork”)

  • Deployment display subtitle – optional detail shown after the display name

  • End-user attribution – whether to show the signed-in identity in the app and attach it to OpenTelemetry as enduser.id

Permissions

Approval modes and persistent permissions available to users:

  • Allow Auto mode – whether to offer “Automatically approve” mode. Recommended to leave off unless every enabled model supports its safety classifier

  • Allow persistent MCP approvals – whether users can save standing MCP tool approvals across tasks and sessions

Customization

User-created skills, plugins, and desktop extensions:

  • Allow user-added MCP servers – whether local (stdio) MCP servers can be added from Developer settings

  • Allow user-created skills – whether users can create and upload their own skills

  • Disable bundled skills and workflows – whether to disable the skills and workflows bundled with Claude Desktop

  • Allow user-added plugins – whether users can upload and create their own plugins

  • Allow user-added plugin marketplaces – whether users can register additional plugin marketplaces

  • Allow desktop extensions – whether .dxt and .mcpb desktop extension installs are allowed

  • Require signed desktop extensions – whether to reject extensions not signed by a trusted publisher

Tools

Built-in tool behavior and MCP execution limits:

  • MCP tool timeout – the global timeout in seconds for each MCP tool call (allowed range 60–3600)

  • Enable tool search – whether MCP tool schemas load on demand; enable only when the inference gateway accepts the tool-search request shape

  • Disabled built-in tools – built-in tools or argument-scoped rules to deny, one per line (e.g. WebSearch, WebFetch, or Read(**/.env))

  • Built-in tool policy – a JSON object mapping built-in tool names or scoped rules to ”allow” or “ask” (e.g. {“Bash”: “allow”, “WebFetch”: “ask”})

Network & workspace

Extra egress hosts and folders users may mount:

  • Additional egress hosts

    – additional hosts the Cowork and Code sandboxes may reach, one per line (e.g. *.example.corp , packages.example.corp:443 ). Moterra and managed MCP hosts are added automatically

  • Allowed workspace folders – a JSON array of folders with a path, an optional mode (ro/rw), and an optional isDefaultSelected. An empty list leaves folder access unrestricted

Privacy & appearance

Telemetry, optional services, and the organization banner:

  • Block essential telemetry – whether to block crash and performance reports sent to Anthropic

  • Block nonessential telemetry – whether to block product analytics and diagnostic-report uploads

  • Block nonessential services – whether to block optional services such as connector favicons, artifact previews, and MCP Apps widgets

  • Organization banner – a JSON object defining a persistent, non-dismissible banner: backgroundColor , enabled , linkUrl (must be HTTPS), text, textColor (as #RRGGBB )

Who can use Configuration

Configuration is only available to admins through the Admin (Cowork) panel. Changes apply organization-wide.

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