Control a PC and launch World of Warcraft from your phone
When I first downloaded Claude Code, I didn't really expect to be blown away by it. Task: When I first downloaded Claude Code, I didn't really expect to be blown away by it. I mean, it's called Claude Code, after all; there's no way it could do anything but code. However, after I started prodding with it, I began to realise there were things you could do with Claude Code that don't have to be code-related. I've had a ton of fun over the last week messing around with Claude Code, and honestly, it's doing things I didn't think were possible with it. So, here are some of the cool things I achieved with it. Claude Code can use apps that don't have an API It works like a human If you haven't given Claude Code a try, the idea is that you can tell it what to do and it'll do it. As you can tell by the name, this is "meant" to be for coding; you can ask it to code something up, test it, and report back to you once it's done. But using Claude Code to actually code is boring, so let's check out some other stuff you can do. Want to stay in the loop with the latest in AI? The XDA AI Insider newsletter drops weekly with deep dives, tool recommendations, and hands-on coverage you won't find anywhere else on the site. Subscribe by modifying your newsletter preferences! One of the first little test runs I did was very simple. I asked Claude Code to hop on my PC, open Calculator, do a sum, then paste the result into Notepad. I needed to do a little bit of setup first; it needed Git to run, and I had to enable permissions to use my computer. But once everything was done, I could just give Claude this prompt: Open the Windows Calculator, calculate 1234 multiplied by 5678, then copy the result and paste it into a new Notepad file and save it to the Desktop as "result.txt" Claude Code controlling your desktop PCTrivia challenge Think you know what an AI coding agent can do when it takes the wheel? Put your knowledge to the test. What is Claude Code primarily designed to do compared to the standard Claude chatbot? Which of the following tasks would Claude Code most plausibly automate on a desktop when given broad access? Which company developed Claude Code? When Claude Code is given desktop control, what major risk must users be especially mindful of? What scripting language does Claude Code most commonly use when automating tasks on a Unix-based desktop? Which tool would Claude Code likely use to schedule a recurring automated task on a Linux desktop? What does it mean for an AI like Claude Code to operate 'agentically'? Which of the following is a realistic example of something Claude Code could automate that many users would find surprisingly impressive? Your Score Thanks for playing! Sure enough, with just that prompt, Claude had all the info it needed to open up the Calculator, do the math, and then paste it into Notepad. That's when I knew I was onto something cool. Who better to learn from than the person who built it? Claude Code can draw...but not in the way I expected It skipped using Paint entirely So, of course, the logical next step I wanted to take with Claude Code was to ask it to draw. So I told it to open up Paint and doodle a cute kitty cat. I wasn't sure what to expect; after all, Claude's mouse control is quite limited. It can't draw in smooth strokes, and it updates itself using intermittent screenshots, so I didn't know how it would handle this. Turns out, Claude had an amazing idea; it instead downloaded Pillow, a Python library, to do the job. I saw the permission to install Pillow pop up, so I accepted it and asked Claude why it downloaded Pillow: I used it because drawing in Paint by controlling the mouse pixel-by-pixel would have been really tedious and the result would've looked quite rough. Instead, I: Installed Pillow (a lightweight Python library for creating images) Wrote a Python script that drew all the kitty's shapes mathematically — circles for the head/body, polygons for ears, arcs for the tail, etc. Saved it as a PNG and opened it in Paint So Paint was still the star of the show for displaying the final artwork — I just used Python as a smarter "brush" to create it! So, while it didn't actually use Paint to draw, I respect that it took this loophole to give me the best cat it can manage. On the plus side, it did save a Python script called draw_kitty on my desktop that I can invoke at any time to render a kitty whenever I want, so I'd argue it went above and beyond my original asking. You can see the end result above; note how the lines are drawn like a math function.; tools: Claude Code, Claude Cowork. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Prerequisites include Git installation and enabling desktop control permissions. The agent's mouse control is limited to intermittent screenshots, making smooth drawing difficult without code-based workarounds. Security risks involve granting broad system access; users must approve each permission request. Source reliability is anecdotal..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
When I first downloaded Claude Code, I didn't really expect to be blown away by it.
Workflow
When I first downloaded Claude Code, I didn't really expect to be blown away by it. I mean, it's called Claude Code, after all; there's no way it could do anything but code. However, after I started prodding with it, I began to realise there were things you could do with Claude Code that don't have to be code-related. I've had a ton of fun over the last week messing around with Claude Code, and honestly, it's doing things I didn't think were possible with it. So, here are some of the cool things I achieved with it. Claude Code can use apps that don't have an API It works like a human If you haven't given Claude Code a try, the idea is that you can tell it what to do and it'll do it. As you can tell by the name, this is "meant" to be for coding; you can ask it to code something up, test it, and report back to you once it's done. But using Claude Code to actually code is boring, so let's check out some other stuff you can do. Want to stay in the loop with the latest in AI? The XDA AI Insider newsletter drops weekly with deep dives, tool recommendations, and hands-on coverage you won't find anywhere else on the site. Subscribe by modifying your newsletter preferences! One of the first little test runs I did was very simple. I asked Claude Code to hop on my PC, open Calculator, do a sum, then paste the result into Notepad. I needed to do a little bit of setup first; it needed Git to run, and I had to enable permissions to use my computer. But once everything was done, I could just give Claude this prompt: Open the Windows Calculator, calculate 1234 multiplied by 5678, then copy the result and paste it into a new Notepad file and save it to the Desktop as "result.txt" Claude Code controlling your desktop PCTrivia challenge Think you know what an AI coding agent can do when it takes the wheel? Put your knowledge to the test. What is Claude Code primarily designed to do compared to the standard Claude chatbot? Which of the following tasks would Claude Code most plausibly automate on a desktop when given broad access? Which company developed Claude Code? When Claude Code is given desktop control, what major risk must users be especially mindful of? What scripting language does Claude Code most commonly use when automating tasks on a Unix-based desktop? Which tool would Claude Code likely use to schedule a recurring automated task on a Linux desktop? What does it mean for an AI like Claude Code to operate 'agentically'? Which of the following is a realistic example of something Claude Code could automate that many users would find surprisingly impressive? Your Score Thanks for playing! Sure enough, with just that prompt, Claude had all the info it needed to open up the Calculator, do the math, and then paste it into Notepad. That's when I knew I was onto something cool. Who better to learn from than the person who built it? Claude Code can draw...but not in the way I expected It skipped using Paint entirely So, of course, the logical next step I wanted to take with Claude Code was to ask it to draw. So I told it to open up Paint and doodle a cute kitty cat. I wasn't sure what to expect; after all, Claude's mouse control is quite limited. It can't draw in smooth strokes, and it updates itself using intermittent screenshots, so I didn't know how it would handle this. Turns out, Claude had an amazing idea; it instead downloaded Pillow, a Python library, to do the job. I saw the permission to install Pillow pop up, so I accepted it and asked Claude why it downloaded Pillow: I used it because drawing in Paint by controlling the mouse pixel-by-pixel would have been really tedious and the result would've looked quite rough. Instead, I: Installed Pillow (a lightweight Python library for creating images) Wrote a Python script that drew all the kitty's shapes mathematically — circles for the head/body, polygons for ears, arcs for the tail, etc. Saved it as a PNG and opened it in Paint So Paint was still the star of the show for displaying the final artwork — I just used Python as a smarter "brush" to create it! So, while it didn't actually use Paint to draw, I respect that it took this loophole to give me the best cat it can manage. On the plus side, it did save a Python script called draw_kitty on my desktop that I can invoke at any time to render a kitty whenever I want, so I'd argue it went above and beyond my original asking. You can see the end result above; note how the lines are drawn like a math function.
Reported result
The author reported successful execution of simple automation tasks like calculating and saving text files. The agent demonstrated adaptive behavior by choosing programmatic image generation over manual mouse control for drawing. No quantitative metrics or failure rates were provided in the source.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Prerequisites include Git installation and enabling desktop control permissions. The agent's mouse control is limited to intermittent screenshots, making smooth drawing difficult without code-based workarounds. Security risks involve granting broad system access; users must approve each permission request. Source reliability is anecdotal.
Try it
Act as a desktop automation agent using Claude Code. My goal is to automate a simple task: open Windows Calculator, calculate 1234 * 5678, and save the result to a new Notepad file named 'result.txt' on the Desktop. Steps: 1. Verify Git is installed and request necessary desktop control permissions. 2. Execute the calculation and file saving task. 3. For a second task, attempt to draw a simple shape. If GUI control is too imprecise, propose installing Pillow to generate a PNG programmatically and open it in Paint. 4. Stop and ask for my confirmation before installing any new libraries or modifying system settings. Output: Show the final 'result.txt' content and the path to the generated image. If inputs are missing, ask for clarification. Do not proceed with real system changes without my explicit approval for each step.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.