the privacy-legal cold-start can't write its own config in Cowork

Author: erickindCreated May 21, 2026Updated May 28, 2026

Running /privacy-legal/cold-start-interview generates two md files, but Claude cannot write them to the correct folder it needs to then run them. Claude says:

The skill expects the files at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/, but I can't write to your ~/.claude directory from here (Cowork blocks application-internal paths).

I manually created the necessary folder structure and moved files across, but needed to record a video for my team on how to do the same including how to access hidden folders (not something most lawyers know how to do!)

I asked Claude why the plug-in would have been written this way if it then can't access it. Claude says:

This plugin was written assuming the broader filesystem access you get in Claude Code (where the CLI runs with your user permissions and can write ~/.claude/... directly). In Cowork, the sandbox is tighter and that path is off-limits — so the setup skill's "write CLAUDE.md to ~/.claude/plugins/config/..." instruction doesn't land cleanly. The plugin should ideally detect Cowork and either (a) ask Cowork to install the config on its behalf, or (b) hand you a one-click installer rather than a bash command. That's worth feeding back to Anthropic — thumbs-down on this response and a note saying "the privacy-legal cold-start can't write its own config in Cowork" will go to the right people.

I've done that and I'm also raising this issue here, in case others have found a better way around this.

Source: anthropics/claude-for-legal