Claude Code Adds Routines for Autonomous AI Tasks and Multi‑Session Desktop UI

Claude Code announces two major updates. The first, Routines, is a research‑preview feature that lets users define automated tasks—including a prompt, code repository, and connectors such as Slack, Linear, or GitHub—and specify trigger conditions. When triggered, Claude runs the task on Anthropic’s hosted cloud servers, so the work continues even if the local computer is shut down.

Routines supports three trigger types that can be combined:

Scheduled triggers : run hourly, daily, on weekdays, or weekly, with automatic timezone conversion. The official example creates a draft PR each day at 2 am after pulling the highest‑priority bug from Linear.

API triggers : each Routine has a unique HTTP endpoint; a POST request with a token can start a run and optionally include context. This is useful for integrating with monitoring systems such as Sentry to automatically analyze stack traces and open fix PRs.

GitHub event triggers : respond to PR, push, issue, release, or Actions workflow events, with optional filters (e.g., only when a PR carries a specific label or originates from a fork).

Typical use cases described by the author include automated documentation sync, cross‑language SDK migration, and PR‑time code review checklists that add security, performance, or style comments. Routines can be configured via the web UI at claude.ai/code/routines, the desktop client, or the CLI command /schedule (CLI currently supports only scheduled routines).

Important notes: Routines is in research preview, may change, has daily run limits per account, uses the user’s GitHub identity for PRs, and all connected MCP connectors are included by default, so permissions should be trimmed as needed. The feature is available to all paid plans after enabling Claude Code on the web.

The second update revamps the Claude Code desktop client. The core change is a single window that can host multiple parallel Claude sessions, managed in a left‑hand sidebar with filters by status, project, or environment. Previously users needed separate terminal windows or desktop instances.

Additional integrated tools include a built‑in terminal for running tests and commands, a file editor for direct code changes, a redesigned diff viewer optimized for large change sets, and HTML/PDF preview panels. All panels support drag‑and‑drop layout customization. A new Side Chat feature (⌘+; on Mac, Ctrl+; on Windows) lets users ask Claude quick questions without interrupting the main task, using the current session’s context.

The desktop client now aligns fully with the CLI plugin, and SSH support has been extended to macOS (previously Linux‑only).

Both updates share a common direction toward parallelism: Routines enables asynchronous, cloud‑based automation, while the desktop UI provides synchronous, multi‑session management locally. For individual developers, Routines automates repetitive, scheduled tasks without writing scripts. For teams, it can reduce manual effort in PR review, documentation sync, and alert response. The features are live for paid users, with Routines still in preview and recommended to be tested before production deployment.