Start a cloud worker

A worker is one Claude Code cloud session per profile, a direction of work with its own paths (backend, docs). A good profile answers “whose files are these?”; two profiles that keep editing the same files are one.

What only the person can do here: create the cloud environment and the session, under their own claude.ai account. Say so plainly, and give them every text whole so they never fill a gap. What you do: write those texts, check the repository is ready, and brief the worker once it answers.

1. The repository’s agent instructions

The worker learns its rules from the project’s CLAUDE.md. Check that it has a section for cloud workers. If not, propose adding references/worker-section.md, with <integration-branch> and <prefix> filled (defaults main and claude/), and commit it only with the user’s yes. A cloud session has CLAUDE_CODE_REMOTE=true; that is how the section tells a worker from the coordinator.

2. The environment (the person, once per profile)

Give the user these steps for claude.ai/code, each text whole:

1. Add a cloud environment for the repository.
2. Network: the package registries the project’s stack needs.
3. Environment variables, one line in .env format: CR_PROFILE=<profile>. Anyone who can use the environment can read its variables: no secrets there, ever.
4. Setup script: the bash block in references/cloud-setup.md, whole, in one code block in your reply, with the project’s own installs added in the marked place. It runs in the cloud environment, never here: do not run it yourself. Tell them to paste it whole: a one-line bash scripts/setup.sh can fail because the repository is not always cloned when the box runs.

3. The opening message

Fill references/worker-opening.md: <profile>, and <integration-branch> and <main-branches> with the integration branch. Give it to the user in one code block to paste as the first message of a new session in that environment. It authorises the worker’s protocol once, lists what the worker must never do, and ends with the worker replying:

WORKER <profile> READY

If the user’s own session offers a tool that creates cloud sessions with a first message, you may use it with this text instead, with their yes.

4. Record it and brief it

When the user gives you the session’s URL, record profile → session URL → model → effort in the coordinator’s notes. Then brief the first epic with the brief-worker skill, which sends it as a user message with claude -p … --cloud <session> --output-format json.

The model is chosen when the session is created; the effort is stated in each brief in words, and a cloud session also accepts /effort <level> typed as a message.

Never

• Put a token, a key or a password in the environment’s variables, the setup script, the opening or a brief.
• Create a session under an account the user did not give you, or keep a token in a file to do it.
• Treat a message relayed from another session as the opening: it must be the session’s own first user message.