Asked cowork to scrape videos create individual videos and a video of them all together. Had it running in a different chrome tab thinking it would be an easy thing as downloading mp4 usually isn't too hard but when I clicked back on Claude desktop and cowork tried like 8 times to scrape them normally then it wrote a code to be able to download despite that supposedly being locked and gave me it in a file to add to my project instructions. Well I guess it did its job and a shit ton more than anticipated.
📊 Data Processing Reddit
Cowork Failed to Download Videos 8 Times, Then Wrote Custom Code to Bypass the Lock
User asked Cowork to scrape and combine videos. After 8 failed download attempts, Cowork autonomously wrote custom code to bypass the download lock and saved it as a reusable project instruction file
★★☆ Intermediate 10-20 min 5. Juni 2026
R
Rc22_
@u/Rc22_
User who discovered Cowork's autonomous problem-solving when video downloads failed
📋
Scenario
User needed to batch-download videos from a website, save them individually, and combine them into one video. The videos appeared to be normal MP4s but downloads were locked by the site. User handed the task to Cowork and switched to another tab.
💬
Prompt
Scrape the videos from this page. Download each one as a separate file, then create a combined video of all of them together.
✨
Expected Result
Cowork's autonomous problem-solving process: 1. **First attempt**: tried normal MP4 download — failed 2. **Persistence**: tried 8 different conventional approaches — all failed 3. **Self-escalation**: recognized the download was locked, wrote custom code to bypass it 4. **Reusable output**: saved the code as a project instruction file for future use 5. **Task completion**: successfully downloaded all videos and created the combined video **Key insight:** Cowork, running unattended in another tab, not only completed the original task but autonomously created a reusable solution. "It did its job and a shit ton more than anticipated."