Product complaint: Cowork's silent switch to remote-by-default sessions broke my working setup, and I paid AI credits to diagnose your configuration

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

User: Daniel ([doberes@gmail.com](mailto:doberes@gmail.com)), Claude desktop app on macOS (Apple Silicon), app version 1.19367.0
Date of report: 2026-07-09
Where this happened: Cowork tab, desktop app, project-based workflow

Summary

I have two projects created the same way, from the same desktop app. The older one runs sessions locally: its connected folders attach at the project level and are simply there every session. The newer one silently runs every session remotely in Anthropic's cloud, where folder connections are per-session by design and evaporate every time. Nothing in the product told me this changed, why the two projects behave differently, or that an alternative exists. I found out by breaking my workflow on it repeatedly, and then by paying for hours of Claude sessions — my Fable credits — to reverse-engineer your own product's configuration from your own documentation.

That is the core complaint: behavior that should be a visible setting is instead undocumented-in-context, was changed underneath an existing workflow without notice, and cost me paid AI compute to discover. I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with software.

What your own documentation says (verified 2026-07-09)

Remote is a new rolling default: "Cowork sessions run remotely by default: the agent loop and code execution run on Anthropic's servers … rolling out gradually across plans." Local execution "remains available for existing desktop deployments."
— Claude Cowork architecture overview
Cowork exposes no choice: "Cowork runs your tasks remotely (in beta)." No toggle, opt-out, or per-session choice is documented.
— Get started with Claude Cowork
Remote sessions only reach local folders while the app is open, via per-session connections: "A remote session can read and write files in folders you've connected on your computer only while the desktop app is open on that computer."
— Use Claude Cowork on web, desktop, and mobile
Meanwhile, the Code tab of the same app has exactly the control Cowork lacks: "Environment: choose where Claude runs. Select Local for your machine, Remote for Anthropic-hosted cloud sessions." Local sessions run "on your machine with direct access to your files."
— Desktop application — Claude Code Docs

So the capability exists in the product today. Cowork just doesn't surface it.

What it cost me

2026-07-09, first session (~09:05–09:42 PDT): an entire session consumed by access failure — folder grants from the previous evening were gone, the assistant initially guessed at settings that don't exist in my UI, and the session ended with research confirming per-session grants are "by design" and a workaround (exporting process docs to disk) instead of a fix.
2026-07-09, second session (~09:45 onward): I retried the project setup as advised. It changed nothing, because nothing about it could change anything — the execution mode isn't user-visible in Cowork. More credits spent while the assistant researched your support articles and docs to find what a settings pane should have shown me in five seconds.
Real work blocked both sessions: I'm mid-project on an image-library tool (a 749-image intake run, prepared and waiting). None of it moved. Two sessions of Fable credits went to configuration archaeology.
Trust cost: I now have to audit what the AI does with my disk and my accounts, because the access model underneath it shifts without notice.

What Should Happen?

What I'm asking for

Persistent folder access for remote Cowork sessions, granted at the project level, like local sessions already have. (I understand open feature requests for this already exist on your tracker — e.g. requests for persistent folder/output settings such as issue #47179. Add this report to the pile.)
Surface execution mode in Cowork as a visible, per-project setting — Local vs. Remote — exactly as the Code tab already does. Don't make users discover session architecture through failure.
Notify users when a default changes under an existing workflow. "Rolling out gradually across plans" meant my projects started behaving differently from each other with zero indication why.
Stop making AI conversation the only interface to configuration. Every question with a deterministic answer — where does this session run, what folders can it see, will they be there tomorrow — should be answerable from a settings screen, not by spending metered credits asking the model to research its own product.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Just create a project

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude desktop app is version 1.19367.0

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_