How to Run a Full Business Team on Claude

Most people use Claude like a search box. They paste a task, get an answer, close the tab. Next session, they start over and re-explain everything from scratch. That is one assistant with no memory. Useful, but small.

Anthropic published a free, open-source plugin system that changes this entirely. It is called knowledge-work-plugins, and it turns Claude into a set of specialized workers. A sales rep. A marketer. A finance analyst. A legal reviewer. A data analyst.

Each one comes pre-loaded with the domain knowledge, ready-made workflows, and tool connections that role actually needs. You are not prompting from scratch anymore. You are running a department.

Where This Runs

These plugins work across two Anthropic products: Claude Cowork and Claude Code. Claude Desktop ships with three products: Chat, Code, and Cowork. Both Cowork and Code can run these plugins, but the way you install them is different for each.

In Cowork, installation is handled through a plugin marketplace UI at claude.com/plugins. No commands required. In Claude Code, you install from the terminal using a two-step CLI process. The steps below cover both.

What Powers Every Plugin

Three things work together inside each plugin. Understanding these makes the rest of the setup obvious.

01 — Skills

Domain Knowledge

The role's expertise, baked in. Claude pulls it automatically when relevant. You do not have to ask for it or write it in a prompt.

02 — Commands

Ready-Made Workflows

Trigger a full workflow with one slash command. /sales:call-prep. /data:write-query. /marketing:seo-audit. One line in, complete output out.

03 — Connections

Your Actual Tools

Each plugin plugs into the tools that role uses. Sales connects to your CRM. Finance connects to your data warehouse. Marketing connects to Canva and your analytics.

This is the same foundation Anthropic built Claude for Legal and Claude for Financial Services on top of. You are getting the base layer of those paid products, free, as open source.

How to Set It Up

Six steps. Each one is short. Do them in order and you will have a working department by the end of today.

Get Claude Desktop

Go to claude.com/download and install Claude Desktop. Once it is open, click the Cowork tab. That is where these plugins live and run.

Install a Plugin

If you are using Cowork: Go to claude.com/plugins, browse the marketplace, and install any role directly from the UI. No commands needed.

If you are using Claude Code: Run these two commands in your terminal. First, connect to the plugin catalog. You only do this once:

$ claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins

Then install the specific role you want. Swap sales with any role name:

$ claude plugin install sales@knowledge-work-plugins

Available roles: marketing, finance, legal, data, product-management, customer-support, productivity, enterprise-search. Start with one. Get comfortable before you expand.

Use Slash Commands to Run Workflows

Once a plugin is installed, it works the same way in both Cowork and Claude Code. No additional setup required. Trigger a workflow directly:

            /sales:call-prep      full pre-call brief from a company name
/data:write-query     plain English description becomes SQL
/marketing:seo-audit  keyword gaps and fixes for any URL
          

Paste notes, upload a file, or describe the situation. The plugin already knows what a good output looks like for that role.

Connect Your Real Tools

This is where each worker goes from capable to indispensable. In Cowork, open Connectors and authorize the tools that role uses. The sales plugin stops asking you to paste pipeline data and starts pulling it from your CRM. The finance plugin reconciles against real numbers. Marketing reports build themselves from your live analytics.

Build the Rest of the Team

Repeat Step 3 for each additional role you need. Once multiple plugins are installed, they work together inside the same session. Your data worker pulls the numbers. Your finance worker reconciles them. Your marketing worker turns the result into a report. One person running a cross-functional team. No payroll.

Make Them Yours

The defaults are strong. The real edge comes from customizing each plugin to match how you specifically work. Use the cowork-plugin-management plugin from the same repo. Tell it your tools, your terminology, your process. Plugins are plain markdown files, so you can edit them directly, fork the repo, and keep private versions.

This is the difference between Claude that knows how a generic sales rep works and Claude that knows how your business sells.

The model did not change. The setup did. And the setup is exactly what almost nobody bothers to do.

What You Have After This

Before: Claude is a chat window. You ask it things. It answers. You close the tab and start over next time.

After: Claude is a building full of specialists. A sales rep who preps every call. A marketer who runs your campaigns. A data analyst who writes the queries. A finance lead who closes the month. All pulling from your real tools. All working in the same session. All running off a free, open-source repo.

Same subscription. Completely different operation.

Most people will read this and install nothing. The ones who run that first command today will be operating a company-in-a-box by the end of the week. They are not going back to a single chat window.

Source: github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins — Free, open source. No sign-up required beyond Claude Desktop.