Cowork scheduled tasks use cloud files: hand off Sume media URLs

Claude's help page for Cowork scheduled tasks says tasks run remotely, even when your computer is asleep, and that they work with cloud files rather than local folders. A task that expects a video on your desktop will not find it. If a task needs generated media, give it a link: Sume returns durable https://media.sume.com URLs for generated files, which the task can read without touching your disk.

Task behavior is from Claude's Cowork scheduling article, read on 2026-10-03; Sume's result format is in Jobs and results and Agent Completions.

What changes when the task is remote?

The article lists what a scheduled task can and cannot do. Because it runs in the cloud, it can only act on connected services and cloud files. A local export folder, a watched directory or a path under your home directory are not reachable. Anything the task produces has to be written somewhere remote too.

What does Sume hand back?

Generation jobs finish with result URLs on media.sume.com, and the docs describe those as durable. An Agent Completion receipt carries status, usage and the output, and its media URLs use the same host. That means the task prompt can say: use this URL, fetch it, and describe or place it in a connected cloud document.

How do I keep the call cheap and safe?

Make the call that creates media outside the task when you can: a Format run or a scheduled Sume action, with its own spend cap, and have the Cowork task only read the finished URL. If the task itself must submit work, use an Agent Completion, where generation_spend_cap_usd is required and the request fails with 400 without it.

Do not paste an API key into a task prompt.

What should the prompt contain?

• The exact media URL, or the instruction to read one from a cloud document.
• What to do with it, in one sentence, so the task does not guess.
• A reminder that local paths do not exist for this task.
• If it must submit work, a spend cap in dollars on that call.

What about timing?

The article ties schedules to Cowork, not to your machine, so a daily task will fire while the laptop is closed. Make sure the Sume job finished before the task runs; a task cannot wait for a job it did not start.