---
title: Why the names
description: Why the framework is called RoutineOS, and why the people workspace is called the Desk.
sidebar:
  order: 3
---

## RoutineOS

A routine on its own is a prompt and a schedule. That is enough for a one-off, and not enough for something a team relies on every week. It needs somewhere to keep what it found, rules about what it may write, a way to ask permission, a way to be told it got something wrong, and a way to show its health. Those are the jobs an operating system does for programs: storage, permissions, scheduling, a shared interface, and a record of what ran.

RoutineOS is that layer for Claude routines. It does not replace the platform underneath (Claude scheduled tasks, artifacts, the artifact database, connectors). It gives every routine built on that platform the same storage layout, the same permission rules, the same settings model and the same place to meet people, so that the tenth routine is as easy to run as the first.

## The Desk

The Desk is the page where a person and a routine meet. The name is literal. A desk is where work arrives for a person to deal with: an in-tray of things that need a look, a stack of records to go through, a few forms waiting for a signature. It is also where the person leaves instructions for whoever does the legwork.

That is what the page does:

- **Today** and the **Inbox** are the in-tray: what the routine thinks needs a person, today.
- **Records** (Browse and the record page) are the files: every company and role the routine has seen, with history.
- **Approvals** are the forms waiting for a signature: nothing leaves until a person approves.
- **Settings** are the instructions left for the next run.

A dashboard is something you look at. A desk is something you work at. The routine reports to it, and the person decides at it.

## Settings, not configuration

RoutineOS calls the values a person tunes "settings", and only settings. A setting has a name, a type, a default, an optional range, a label the Desk shows, and a `cost_note` that says what turning it up costs. See [Settings](/concepts/settings).

## Related

- [Philosophy](/introduction/philosophy)
- [The Desk](/desk)