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Use this guide when you want to discuss one Paperzilla project in Slack and send a weekday research brief to Slack from Cowork. This walkthrough uses Claude in Slack for the live discussion, Paperzilla MCP for Paperzilla data access, and Cowork scheduled tasks for recurring delivery.

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Before you start

Set up the Paperzilla MCP connection in Claude first. Anthropic says you cannot create or manage integrations from Slack itself.

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How this stack works

  • You discuss papers with Claude in Slack.
  • Claude reads your Paperzilla data through the Paperzilla MCP connection you already configured in Claude.
  • For the weekday brief, Cowork runs a scheduled task and prepares a Slack-ready post.
  • Start with a Slack draft. Move to direct send only after you trust the brief format.

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Use case 1: on-demand paper discussion

For the cleanest flow, use a Claude DM in Slack. If you want team visibility, mention @Claude in a channel or thread and review the private draft before posting it. First ask for the latest papers from one project: 
Use my Paperzilla project `Agents evaluation`.
Our work: we build evaluation infrastructure for coding agents.

Pull the latest papers from this project and show the top 5.
For each one, include the title, date, source, and whether it looks Must Read or Related.
Then ask for metadata for one paper: 
Open the second paper and show the metadata only.
Include authors, publication date, source, URL, and the Paperzilla ID you used.
Then fetch markdown and connect it back to your team context: 
Fetch the markdown for that paper.
Summarize the contribution, method, results, and limits.
Then explain why it matters for our work.
Then keep the discussion going: 
Given our current work, should we read this now, keep it as Related, or ignore it this week?
Defend the recommendation.
Good replies for this flow should:
  • keep the project name and “our work” context in view
  • separate metadata from interpretation
  • explain relevance in terms of your actual work, not generic importance
  • make it easy to continue the discussion in the same Slack conversation
If you use @Claude in a shared thread, Claude in Slack shows the draft privately first and lets you decide whether to post it.

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Use case 2: weekday research brief in Slack

This pattern runs in Cowork on weekdays and prepares a brief for Slack. Start a Cowork task, paste a prompt like this, then type /schedule and set the run to weekdays at your preferred time: 
Use my Paperzilla project `Agents evaluation`.
Our work: we build evaluation infrastructure for coding agents.

Every weekday morning:
1. Pull the newest papers from this project.
2. Keep the brief concise.
3. For each selected paper, include the title, one short summary, and one sentence on why it is relevant to our work.
4. Include the project name and today's date at the top.
5. If there are no new papers, say that explicitly.
6. Draft a Slack post for #research-briefs and show it to me first.
Start with the draft pattern above. Once the output is stable, you can switch the last line to direct send: 
Send the Slack message to #research-briefs instead of drafting it.
The expected brief format is:
  • project name and date
  • how many new papers were checked
  • for each selected paper, one short summary and one sentence on why it is relevant to your work
  • a clear “no new papers today” line when nothing new qualifies
Cowork scheduled tasks only run while your computer is awake and the Claude Desktop app is open.
See Get started with Cowork for scheduling entry points and Use interactive connectors in Claude for Slack draft/send behavior.

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Limits and troubleshooting

  • If Claude in Slack cannot access Paperzilla, reconnect or re-enable the Paperzilla connector in Claude settings first.
  • If Claude in Slack cannot access Slack delivery actions, check your Slack connector and permissions in Claude.
  • If the scheduled task does not run, confirm Claude Desktop is open and your computer is awake.
  • If the agent returns no papers, confirm the project is active and already has feed items.
  • If paper_markdown is queued or unavailable, retry later instead of changing the workflow.

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Optional shortcut

If you want this workflow packaged as a reusable skill, see the paperzilla-monitor skill repo. Current install and distribution details live in that repo’s README.