How to install Claude Duet: 6 steps from the waitlist to your first morning brief
Claude Duet has no download link until you are invited. The 6 steps from waitlist to working agent, the matching-email trap, and how to add your own tools.
Phillip Hanasz4 min readMost people look for Claude Duet in the App Store, find nothing, and assume it is not out yet. It is out. Anthropic announced it as a research preview on October 21, 2026, but the app only becomes available to you after an invitation, and the invitation is tied to one email address (Anthropic).
Get that address wrong and you can wait for an invitation that will never work. Here are the six steps in the order that avoids it, as of October 2026.
What you need first
- A Claude Pro or Max plan. Team and Enterprise are not supported yet (Claude Help Center).
- A US Claude account. Duet is US only during the preview.
- An iPhone or an Android phone. The Help Center describes phone apps. Anthropic's announcement also mentions claude.ai; the help article does not, so plan on the phone.
- One email address used everywhere: on the waitlist, on your Claude account, and on the Apple or Google account of your phone.
Duet has no price of its own. It is included in Pro ($20 a month) and Max, and uses their usage limits.
Step 1: join the waitlist
Open the Claude Duet page at claude.com/product/claude-duet and choose Join the waitlist.
Step 2: fill in the form with the right email
Enter your name and the email of your Claude account. Pick your plan and your phone type (iPhone or Android). You can also describe your work and what you would hand off first. Then Submit.
Do not use a forwarding alias. Access is tied to the exact address you enter, and it has to match the account you will sign in with on the phone (Claude Help Center).
Step 3: wait for the invitation
Invitations go out in waves and there is no date. If nothing arrives, check that your plan, your US account and your waitlist email all match; that is the first thing support will ask.
Step 4: install from the invitation email
Open the invitation on your phone and follow the steps for iPhone or Android, signed in to the Apple or Google account with the same email. The app can take a few minutes to become available after you accept. If it is not there yet, wait and try again.
Step 5: sign in with your Claude account
Open Claude Duet and sign in. Your memory, skills and connected apps carry over from your Claude account, so it does not start empty (Anthropic).
What you see:
- Main thread: one ongoing conversation. You can start separate channels; they share the same memory.
- Tasks: work in progress and anything waiting for your input. Only you can mark a task complete.
- Make: finished work, such as files you can review and edit.
Step 6: connect the apps it should watch
Duet uses the connectors on your Claude account. The Help Center lists Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Docusign and Calendly as examples. Link (by Stripe) and Shop Pay, which Duet uses for purchases, are connected inside Duet itself, not in the connector directory. Microsoft 365 is not available yet.
Connect only what you want Duet to read every few hours. You can disconnect any app later, but what it already learned stays in its memory unless you remove it.
Add your own tools with a custom connector
The connectors are not limited to the marketplace. Any remote MCP server you add to your Claude account as a custom connector is available to Duet too. On claude.ai or in the Claude desktop app: Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector, a name and the server URL.
For hardware work that means Duet can watch a bill of materials. With Next Everything connected it can call check_bom twice a day, tell you in the morning brief when a part runs out or is marked end of life, propose an in-stock replacement with find_alternatives, and prepare the order. The order step only emails you a payment link; nothing is charged until you pay it yourself. The URL to paste is on the Claude Duet setup page, and a worked example is in BOM stock alerts with Claude Duet.
What Duet asks before acting
It reads, drafts and prepares on its own. Before it sends a message, pays, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you the exact action and waits. Trading securities and moving money between accounts are blocked even if you approve (Anthropic).
Watch your usage limits
Morning briefs and check-ins are model work, so they count toward your five-hour and weekly limits. Anthropic gives each new Duet user one full reset of both limits, usable until November 30, 2026 (Claude Help Center). Tell Duet how often each source really needs checking; twice a day is plenty for most.
If it does not work
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| No invitation | Plan is Pro or Max, account is in the US, waitlist email matches the Claude account |
| App missing after accepting | Wait a few minutes, then open it again |
| A connector is missing | It must work in the normal Claude app first; re-add it on claude.ai if not |
| Limits run out early | Fewer check-ins, fewer connected sources |
| Something else | Describe it in plain words in the Duet chat; Anthropic collects feedback there |
Next
How Duet compares to Meta Muse, OpenAI dots and Grok Bot is in our side-by-side comparison. If MCP is new to you, start with MCP for hardware engineers in 5 minutes, and for which assistants can call your own tools at all, see which AI models support MCP. To try the parts side today, before your Duet invitation arrives, the same connector works in the Claude app: sign up is free.