Claude Duet: Background Assistance with Clear Tasks and Human Control

A useful assistant does not need to forward everything it discovers. It should help you see what needs a decision, what evidence supports it, and what happens next. For background work, the initial brief strongly influences the quality of the handoff.

🤖 1. Understand the Claude Duet preview

As of October 27, 2026, Duet is a waitlisted research preview initially for US Pro and Max users. Tasks use a virtual machine; account checks happen every few hours and share Claude usage limits. “24/7” should not imply uninterrupted monitoring or unlimited usage. See the official announcement.

The following workflow is CYAN PRO's suggested approach to briefing and reviewing work. Individual steps depend on your account's access, connections, and available capabilities.

🎯 2. Choose one task with a clear deliverable

Start with something you can evaluate: prepare a meeting brief, collect unanswered customer questions, or compare a task list with recorded deadlines.

Define the goal, allowed sources, time window, output, completion criteria, and approval boundary. If a source is unavailable, the result should identify that gap instead of guessing what it contains.

Prepare a brief for [meeting] on [date, time, time zone].
Use only the documents and conversation threads listed below.
Include the goal, pending decisions, unanswered questions,
responsible people, and source links for significant points.
If sources conflict, show both and mark the issue for confirmation.
Prepare a draft only; do not send it or change calendar events.

A short brief with traceable evidence can be easier to review than several polished pages without sources.

🔔 3. Define when a notification is useful

“Tell me when something is important” leaves too much unspecified. Explain what matters for this task: an approaching deadline, changed evidence that affects a decision, or a question only you can resolve.

Suggest grouping minor updates and escalating specific blockers. This is an operating rule you request, not a guarantee that every event will be detected immediately.

🧭 A reviewable notification rule

Propose notification rules for this task:
- Action needed: a missing decision blocks further progress.
- Summary: progress updates that require no immediate action.
- No repeat: an already reported event without a material change.
Each notification should state the change, evidence, impact,
and the specific question requiring my answer.
Identify access or monitoring limitations that could cause omissions.

Adjust the thresholds after reviewing which notifications actually helped. More alerts do not necessarily mean more useful work.

🔐 4. Separate preparation from consequential action

Anthropic describes approval checks for consequential actions, including sensitive messages, purchases, and deletion. Some actions remain restricted even with approval, and preview safeguards can make mistakes. See the Duet safety documentation.

For your team's process, name the reviewer, the scope of approval, and the evidence to inspect. For a reply, review recipients, wording, attachments, and what information may be shared. For a calendar change, check time zones and affected participants.

Approving a result should involve reading it. Clarify an ambiguous brief before authorizing the next step.

🧪 5. Pilot a narrow workflow

Use familiar data for the first trial. Compare discovered tasks, omissions, misinterpreted sources, and the time required to correct the draft.

Record problems as observed result → correct evidence → brief adjustment. If two people with the same name were merged, add an appropriate project identifier or work address rather than simply requesting “greater accuracy.”

CYAN CAM, currently in beta, can help record your on-screen review process for teammates learning how to inspect outputs.

✅ 6. Measure the handoff

Useful background work ends with a findable result, supporting evidence, a clear status, and specific unresolved questions. A completed task should have a concise handoff rather than an endless stream of progress messages.

The goal is to reduce what you must remember while retaining control of decisions. Start with one workflow, measure correction time, and expand when the outputs are dependable enough for that use.