[Feature Request] Unified user state across Cowork and Claude chat — shared memory, files, skills, connectors

Problem

Claude Cowork (Desktop research preview) and Claude chat (web + iOS + Android) operate as siloed surfaces despite serving the same authenticated user:

• Cowork can read/write a scoped folder on my Mac, run skills, use plugins, and execute multi-step file-centric work — but only at my desk, with no mobile equivalent.
• Chat (especially the iOS app) is where I actually spend time when I'm away from my desk. It has its own memory, its own connectors, its own thread history.

When I shift surfaces during a workflow, context resets. Memory doesn't follow. Files I worked on in Cowork aren't visible in chat on the go. Connector state and authentications don't carry. Skills configured for one don't appear in the other (related: #20697).

Use case

Typical day: morning at desk → Cowork on a project folder → commute → continue thinking in iOS chat → evening back at desk → Cowork to execute. Today this requires manual context-passing. I use Claude Code Dispatch from iOS to route specific tasks to a Claude Code session on my Mac, which works well, but it doesn't solve the underlying memory and file split — it just routes a single task across.

I've worked around this by making Obsidian Sync my canonical file backend (Claude Code reads it directly on Mac, Obsidian Sync handles mobile access), but that only partially closes the gap and doesn't address memory or connector state.

Suggested approach

Treat Cowork and chat as two surfaces over a single unified user state:

1. Shared memory — claude.ai memory, Cowork auto-memory, and Claude Code CLAUDE.md should converge into one coherent layer the user can read/write from any surface.
2. Shared file workspace — when Cowork has a folder scoped, that folder (or selected artifacts) should be reachable from chat as a viewable/searchable resource. From iOS I should be able to ask "what's the latest on the X analysis I was working on in Cowork?" and get an answer grounded in Cowork's actual files.
3. Shared skills and connectors — already requested for skills in #20697; extend to connectors and authentication state.
4. Surface handoff affordances — explicit "continue this in Cowork" / "continue this in chat" actions, analogous to Claude Code's /desktop and --teleport for the coding case.

Related

• #15542 — Claude Code ↔ Claude App chat history
• #2511 — Claude Code ↔ Claude Projects
• #20697 — Sync Skills between Desktop and CLI
• #14228 — Claude Code access to claude.ai memory

This issue is specifically about the Cowork ↔ chat axis (file-centric desktop work ↔ on-the-go mobile chat), which the issues above don't quite cover.