RCP-CWK-033 Cowork Help System

Answers “how do I…?” questions by dynamically searching your CRAFT project files

Finds recipes by ID or keyword, shows organized category overviews, and troubleshoots errors by searching Lessons Learned entries and known error patterns. Results are grounded in actual file content — excerpts come directly from your cookbooks, CLAUDE.md, and Lessons Learned file.

Cowork Help System

Cowork | Platform Bridges | Difficulty: Intermediate | Time: Under 1 min
Tags: Introduced in Beta, Help, Search, Recipes, Troubleshoot, Categories, Lessons Learned, Bridge, Cowork

TL;DR

What It Does
Answers “how do I…?” questions by dynamically searching your CRAFT project files. Finds recipes by ID or keyword, shows organized category overviews, and troubleshoots errors by searching Lessons Learned entries and known error patterns. Results are grounded in actual file content — excerpts come directly from your cookbooks, CLAUDE.md, and Lessons Learned file.
How It Works
Four search modes driven by your query. Categories mode shows an organized recipe overview grouped by function. Recipe mode looks up a specific recipe by ID and displays its parameters, dependencies, and quick reference. Search mode runs multi-file grep queries across the recipe index, CLAUDE.md, and cookbooks, ranking and deduplicating results. Troubleshoot mode searches Lessons Learned and CWK-014 error patterns for known solutions. The mode is auto-detected from your query.
What To Expect
A formatted help response citing specific files and offering related topic suggestions. Brief mode gives 2–3 lines. Standard mode gives structured sections with key details. Detailed mode gives full excerpts with all parameters and examples.
Best Results When You
Ask in natural language — “help with handoffs,” “help RCP-CWK-005,” or “how do I fix index.lock?” The auto-detection handles routing. For comprehensive overviews, just type “help” or “help categories.”
Typical Time
Under 1 minute. File searches are fast — typically 2–4 grep operations and 1–2 file reads.
Difficulty
Intermediate — the recipe itself is simple to invoke (just ask for help), but understanding the results requires familiarity with CRAFT’s recipe system, cookbook structure, and Lessons Learned conventions.

How To Start

This recipe answers help questions by searching your project files in real time. Just ask a question — the recipe figures out the best search strategy automatically.

STEP 1Ask for Help

Ask a help question in natural language. The recipe detects the best search strategy and verbosity level automatically.
Available parameters
  • query · string · required
    Your help question or topic in natural language. An empty string or “help categories” triggers the category overview.
  • verbosity · string · optional · default: standard
    Output detail level: “brief” (2–3 lines), “standard” (structured sections), or “detailed” (full excerpts). Auto-detected from query keywords.
  • mode · string · optional · default: auto
    Search strategy: “auto” (infers from query), “search” (multi-file grep), “categories” (organized overview), “recipe” (ID lookup), or “troubleshoot” (Lessons Learned + error patterns).
  • called_by · string · optional · default: user
    Caller context for integration. Set to “CWK-014” when triggered by the Error Interceptor for proactive help.
Invocations
Category overview
help
Search by topic
help with handoffs
Recipe lookup
help RCP-CWK-005

Usage Examples

EXAMPLE 1Category overview

User
help
Cat
CRAFT Cowork Quick Reference. Session Lifecycle: CWK-001, 002, 002a, 003. Safety & Version Control: CWK-004, 005, 006. Platform Bridges: CWK-007 through CWK-035. Quality Assurance: CWK-013, 015, 021, 023, 024, 025. Cross-Project Transfer: CWK-026, 027, 028. For recipe details: “help RCP-CWK-NNN.” For troubleshooting: “help troubleshoot [topic].”

EXAMPLE 2Topic search

User
help with handoffs
Cat
Help: handoffs. Results: RCP-CWK-002 — Session Handoff — writes end-of-session handoff block. RCP-CWK-002a — Multi-Session Continuation — automated continuation across sessions. RCP-CWK-031 — MPCS Orchestrator — HANDOFF mode for persona state. From: CRAFT-RECIPE-INDEX.txt. Related: help session lifecycle, help CWK-002.

EXAMPLE 3Recipe lookup

User
help RCP-CWK-005
Cat
RCP-CWK-005 — Git Checkpoint. Version: v1.00a | Status: Implemented. Category: Safety & Version Control. Description: Creates atomic git commits with standardized messages. Parameters: message (string, required), scope (string, optional). Dependencies: none. Used by: CWK-002, CWK-026, CWK-031. From: CFT-FWK-COOKBK-COWORK.txt.

EXAMPLE 4Troubleshooting

User
help fix index.lock error
Cat
Troubleshooting: index.lock. Lessons Learned: LL-011: Git clone into mounted folder fails — “unable to unlink .git/config.lock.” Action: Clone to /tmp first, then cp -r to mounted folder. Remove stale lock via allow_cowork_file_delete. From: CFT-PROJ-CP-067_LESSONS-LEARNED.txt. Related: help CWK-005, help troubleshoot git.

How AI Reads This Recipe

When this recipe is triggered, the AI searches project files to answer help questions. The AI should:
  1. Parse Help Request (Step 1). Extract query text. Auto-detect mode: empty or “help categories” → categories; recipe ID pattern → recipe; error-related keywords (“error,” “fail,” “broken,” “fix,” “stuck,” “crash”) → troubleshoot; everything else → search. Auto-detect verbosity from query keywords.
  2. Execute Search (Step 2). Categories: display organized recipe list by function group. Recipe: grep the recipe index for the ID, read the recipe source, display title, version, parameters, dependencies, and quick reference. Search: grep across recipe index, CLAUDE.md, and cookbooks; rank by source priority; deduplicate to top 5. Troubleshoot: grep Lessons Learned and CWK-014 error patterns; if called by CWK-014, prepend error acknowledgment.
  3. Format Response (Step 3). Use #Cat->H::Help: prefix. Brief: 2–3 lines. Standard: structured sections with “Related” links. Detailed: full excerpts with parameters and examples. Always include source file reference and related topic suggestions.
  4. Integration (Step 4). COM TIER_1_CRITICAL — always executes regardless of COM state, bypasses verbosity restrictions, never triggers token warnings. When called by CWK-014, auto-set mode to troubleshoot and include error context.
  5. Audit (Step 5). Log audit trail entry with query, mode, verbosity, match count, and sources searched.

When To Use This Recipe

Use this recipe when you need to find a recipe by name, keyword, or ID, want an organized overview of available CRAFT recipes, encounter an error and want to search Lessons Learned for known solutions, want to understand what a specific recipe does before using it, or need to discover which recipes handle a particular task.
Do Not Use When
You need to execute a recipe — CWK-033 finds and describes recipes but does not run them. To execute a recipe, use the recipe directly or use CWK-012 (COM) for automated recipe dispatch.

Recipe FAQ

How does auto-detection decide the mode?
The recipe checks your query in order: (1) empty or “help categories” → categories mode, (2) starts with “RCP-” or matches a recipe ID pattern → recipe mode, (3) contains error-related keywords like “fix,” “broken,” “crash” → troubleshoot mode, (4) everything else → search mode.
What files does this recipe search?
Priority order: CRAFT-RECIPE-INDEX.txt (recipe locations), CLAUDE.md (project config), CFT-FWK-COOKBK-COWORK (full recipes), Lessons Learned files (troubleshooting patterns), and CFT-FWK-COOKBK-CORE (fallback).
What is the COM integration?
CWK-033 is TIER_1_CRITICAL in the COM system (CWK-012). This means help always executes regardless of COM monitoring state. Help requests bypass verbosity restrictions and never trigger token usage warnings — getting help should never be gated.
Can this recipe be triggered automatically?
Yes — CWK-014 (Error Interceptor) can call CWK-033 with called_by="CWK-014" when it detects an error condition. This auto-sets mode to troubleshoot and includes error context in the search. The user sees proactive help without needing to ask.
Why live file search instead of a hardcoded help database?
Live search keeps help current automatically. As recipes are added, updated, or removed, the help system reflects those changes without manual maintenance. Results cite actual file excerpts, so you can trust they match the current state of the framework.

Version History

v1.00a — 2026-03-02
Initial creation. Replaces hardcoded help categories with live file-based search using Grep and Read tools. Four modes (categories, recipe, search, troubleshoot), three verbosity levels, auto-detection from natural language, COM TIER_1_CRITICAL integration, CWK-014 Error Interceptor proactive help routing.

Get this recipe with CRAFT for Claude Cowork

Cowork recipes ship bundled with CRAFT for Claude Cowork — there’s no separate download. Clone the framework once, and your AI runs every recipe automatically when invoked.

Pull anytime to stay on the latest version — free to clone, no login or email required.

Then start your session

Once CRAFT is in your project folder, open a new Cowork session and ask Claude to initialize. For example:

You

Please initialize my CRAFT session.

Claude

CRAFT session ready. Your project is loaded, your persona is active, and your recipes are available. What would you like to work on?

What is CRAFT for Claude Cowork?

Not familiar with Git? Download as a ZIP

No command line needed. Just download, move, and unzip:

  1. Open the CRAFT framework repo on GitHub.
  2. Click the green Code button, then choose Download ZIP.
  3. Move the downloaded ZIP into your Claude Cowork project folder.
  4. Unzip it: double-click on Mac, or right-click → Extract All on Windows.

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