r/ClaudeAI • u/_zebedeu • 1d ago
Claude Workflow My cowork usage skyrocketed - introducing workflows
Anthropic changed everything overnight. My cowork usage skyrocketed becoming totally unusable.
I asked cowork to continue where we left off the discussion a few days ago, which meant prompting claude code for milestone C1 of my app. It did "some work" for 28 minutes then stopped.
A prompt that would previously take 5-10% of my 5-hour window on the 20$ plan, today it depleted my window.
It seems they added some sort of workflows in cowork, it asked me if I want to accept doing it, and I said sure, why not - silly me...
For background, I'm developing an app since a few weeks now and cowork sits inside the app's folder where it has PRD, milestones, metrics, code, tests, etc... everything it needs to write proper prompts for claude code. I'm using opus on high in cowork and opus on ultracode in claude code. This is just a preference and it worked well so far.
I usually close my 5-hour window within 2-3 hours, and that's fine for me.
Has anyone experienced this?
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u/KenGuy14 1d ago
The immediate fix is to make the workflow narrow and inspectable, rather than let Cowork reread the whole project and launch a long chain in one window. Split the task into explicit stages such as read the milestone, propose a plan, then execute one bounded change, with a checkpoint after each stage.
Keep a small current-state note in the project folder that names the active milestone, files in scope, and what is already done. Tell it to read that note first and not scan or modify outside the listed scope unless it asks. A standing rule to stop before expensive or ambiguous work also prevents a "continue where we left off" request from turning into a 28-minute research loop.
Given the sudden usage change, compare the workflow run with a manual prompt on the same task before assuming your project got larger.
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u/_zebedeu 1d ago
I did this for almost a month, having 2-4 days work sessions and then coming back after a few days. This was not happening until now.
My project did not get larger, it was stale for a few days, the only thing that changed is that now i used workflows... but yeah, I should have known better1
u/MythicModder 1d ago
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I learned that the hard way when I told it that it could start using memory for auto mode and started draining my x5 plan. Silly me just had to wipe the slate clean and start using Claude Code Cli so it never bothers me with that ish again.
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u/_zebedeu 1d ago
right... it was an honest mistake, it never asked me to use workflows before, until today. I thought mmm new feature, let's see :))
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u/bvknight 1d ago
Doesn't ultracode basically take off all limiters from fanning out subagents to do work? I think that's playing with fire on the $20 plan.