{"id":2203,"date":"2026-02-27T13:38:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mateusztatara.com\/en\/?p=2203"},"modified":"2026-06-22T16:02:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:02:28","slug":"i-taught-claude-cowork-to-order-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mateusztatara.com\/en\/i-taught-claude-cowork-to-order-my","title":{"rendered":"I let an AI buy my groceries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I taught Claude Cowork my shopping list, my budget, and my favourite shop. Now I’m wondering what else doesn’t need my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"I\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

So here I am, Sunday evening, on my couch, watching Claude Cowork<\/a> navigate through the Carrefour page, adding my favourite Skyr yogurt and oat milk to the cart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One by one, he was going through the whole grocery list I had prepared for him. Everything was going smoothly until the CAPTCHA came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrefour\u2019s page showed the \u201cselect all images with boats\u201d challenge. Claude\u2019s internal monologue, which you can actually watch in real time, went like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI see there\u2019s a CAPTCHA challenge appearing. This is asking to select images with boats or ships. This could be a challenge for automation \u2014 CAPTCHAs are designed to block bots. Let me try to skip it and continue, but this is something we need to note.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He tried to skip it. Another CAPTCHA appeared. \ud83d\ude05<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few attempts he selected the right images and got through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I built a skill that lets Claude do my weekly grocery shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online. On his own. From start to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how it works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. I add my shopping list to a Google Sheet<\/li>\n\n\n
  2. Claude checks that list and opens the Carrefour website<\/li>\n\n\n
  3. He selects a delivery slot (always between 6\u20138 PM the next business day)<\/li>\n\n\n
  4. He searches for each product and adds it to the cart, quantity and all<\/li>\n\n\n
  5. He sends me a desktop notification when he\u2019s done. I check the cart and make the final payment<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The whole thing takes about 30 minutes depending on how many items I need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Which, yes, is slower than doing it myself. But that\u2019s not the point. While he is shopping, I can do other stuff.I got my time back on that one weekly task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So what are Claude Skills anyway?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Skills are a way you can \u201cteach\u201d an LLM to do certain tasks in a certain way, basically the whole workflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They can work for small tasks, like my grocery shopping, as well as large, complicated workflows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A great example comes from Dan Shipper and Natalia Quintero at Every<\/a>, who recently showed Claude Code capabilities in action.<\/a>Claudie (that’s the name they gave him) simultaneously checks three different sources (Gmail, Google Calendar, transcripts from meetings), distills insights from them, and creates a Google Sheet with all the data, precisely and based on strict rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Work that normally takes a person around 10\u201315 hours every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There\u2019s this moment in their video that stuck with me. Dan pauses mid-conversation and just says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cThat\u2019s kind of crazy. That\u2019s crazy that that\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    And Natalie responds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cThe only thing that\u2019s crazier is that the alternative to Claudie doing this is me doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Four weeks ago, spending 10\u201315 hours on that work just felt like the job.Now it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Dan then asks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cSo what do you do with all your time, Natalie?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    She laughs and says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cWork with more clients, Dan. Of course.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    And that\u2019s the whole point. She can now focus on high-leverage work, while Claudie handles the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Promote Yourself concept<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    As Dan put it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cIf you had hired a human project manager, you wouldn\u2019t expect to lose your job. You\u2019d expect to manage the project manager and suddenly do a lot more\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s exactly what this feels like.That\u2019s the idea behind \u201cPromote Yourself Day,\u201d something Every introduced during their Panama offsite. The idea was simple: figure out how to promote yourself so you\u2019re not doing the hands-on work anymore. You\u2019re one level above.I started my own doc where I\u2019m tracking all the processes I\u2019m teaching Claude Code, and I will be sharing that in the future. For me, this is exactly what Marc Andreessen recently talked about at Lenny\u2019s Podcast, that jobs aren\u2019t going away, but tasks are.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How to create your own Claude skill?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Anthropic shared a meta-skill, one that helps you create any other skill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s really easy to start. You can just ask Claude to help you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u201cLet\u2019s create a skill together using your skill-creator skill. First ask me what the skill should do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    He will then ask you a few questions and distill all the information into one file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now every time you have that repeated process, he will just use that skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Remember that it\u2019s an iterative process, and once you catch him doing something off, you can update the skill file to include that use case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Think about it as onboarding a new teammate and showing him how you do stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There is some \u201cteaching period\u201d but after some time he\u2019ll know how to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you are interested in exploring that deeper, here are a few links from Anthropic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n