What are artifacts and how do I use them?

An artifact is anything Claude makes for you that you'd put in front of someone: a design, a deck, a document, a dashboard, or a small interactive tool. It opens beside your conversation, and you can edit it, come back to it, and share it with others. Ask for one in any conversation with Claude, including in Claude Code, or start from a template in the “Artifacts” tab.

Claude creates an artifact when the content it's sharing meets these criteria:

Claude can make an artifact out of almost anything, including documents, code snippets, single-page websites, images, diagrams and flowcharts, dashboards, and small interactive tools.

Templates are starting points for work you'll share with others. Ask for one in any chat, select "Output" in the message box and choose a template, or pick one in the Artifacts tab.

Whichever template you start from, the artifact works the same way: edit it by talking to Claude or directly in the artifact, and it updates live as you work. When it's ready, share it or export it.

Designs and decks can use a design system, so new work picks up your colors, fonts, and components. Learn more about setting up your design system.

Everything you make is saved to the Artifacts tab in your Claude sidebar, so you can find it again from any conversation. From there you can view all your artifacts in one place, start a new one from a template, and organize what you've made.

An artifact opens in its own window beside your conversation. Artifacts made from a template open on a canvas or page you can work in directly.

If someone publishes an artifact you like, you can use it as a starting point for your own version. Your version is separate, so nothing you do affects the original.

If an artifact generates an error, look for the "Try fixing with Claude" button near the error message. Click it to copy the error details into a new message, then send it to Claude to diagnose the issue and suggest a fix. Claude will attempt to fix the error, but success isn't guaranteed. Some errors need more troubleshooting.

To get into and out of the artifact panel, and to comment from the panel's header, see Use artifacts with a keyboard or screen reader. That article also explains what focus means, what to do on a Mac laptop or in Safari, and how the tables show keys.

The editor is divided into areas: the toolbar at the top, the slide you're editing, a formatting toolbar that floats over whatever is selected, the list of slide thumbnails, and the properties panel.

Press F6 to move to the next area and Shift+F6 to move to the previous one. Cmd+F6 (Ctrl+F6 on Windows) works in place of F6, with or without Shift. Each area remembers where you last were in it. F6 is paused while a menu, pop-up, or dialog is open, and while you're presenting.

The slide is a single stop when you press Tab. The objects on it are inside the slide: you go into the slide to reach them, and a group has its own objects inside it in the same way.

In a table, Tab and Return move between cells. Press Escape or Cmd+Return (Ctrl+Enter on Windows) to finish.

With a free-standing object selected, the arrow keys move it (an object that's part of the slide's layout stays where the layout puts it), and F6 takes you to its formatting toolbar. With a screen reader, the slide and each object tell you which key goes in and which comes back.

With nothing selected on the slide, press the Left arrow or Right arrow key, or Page Up or Page Down, to change slides. With a screen reader, you hear the new slide's number and title. If an object is selected, the arrow keys move the object instead, so press Escape first.

You can also press F6 until you reach the list of thumbnails. There, the Left arrow and Right arrow keys move between slides, showing each one in the editor as you go, and Return moves you onto that slide.

While you're presenting, press the Right arrow key or Space for the next slide, the Left arrow key for the previous one, and Escape to end. With a screen reader, you hear each slide's number and title as it appears. When you end the presentation, focus returns to "Present."

To comment on a slide or on something on it, see "Comment on a deck or a design" in Use artifacts with a keyboard or screen reader.

The "Canvas" view, which shows every slide at once, doesn't give a screen reader anything to read. Use the list of thumbnails instead.

If the arrow keys don't move an object, it's part of the slide's layout, which positions it for you. Ask Claude to move it. The single-letter shortcuts work when you're not typing and focus isn't on the formatting toolbar or in the properties panel. The new object appears on the slide, selected, and a new text box opens for typing. Cmd+Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows) removes it. For a new text box, press Escape first to finish typing.

In the formatting toolbar: the Left arrow and Right arrow keys move between buttons, Home and End move to the first and last, Return or Space uses a button, and Tab or Escape goes back to the object.

In the list of thumbnails (the Menu key is the key some Windows keyboards have between the right Alt and Ctrl keys; it opens the menu you'd get with a right-click):

The slide's menu includes "Duplicate slide," "Add slide after," "Move left," "Move right," "Skip slide," and "Delete slide." "Move left" and "Move right" are how you reorder slides from the keyboard.

While presenting:

You can build artifacts that call Claude directly, turning them into small apps. People using your artifact can ask questions, generate content, get coaching, play games, and solve problems, with Claude adapting to what they enter.

Describe what you want, Claude writes the code, and the app runs on Anthropic's infrastructure. People using it sign in with their Claude account and interact with their own instance.

No API keys are required, and there's no cost to you. Whether your artifact helps 10 people or 10,000, sharing is free, and usage counts against each person's own plan limits rather than yours. On Team and Enterprise plans, people in your organization can use what you share without adding cost for you.

For legacy artifacts, you can turn this off with the AI-powered artifacts setting in Settings > Capabilities. New artifacts ask you for permission the first time they want to use Claude.

Artifacts can connect to the apps you've connected to Claude, so they can read from and write to tools like Asana, Google Calendar, and Slack. They can also connect to any custom connectors you've set up.

The first time an artifact needs a connected app, Claude shows which apps and tools it will use and asks you to approve them. You can turn individual tools off, and your choice carries over to later uses of that artifact. Connector tools that need approval for each action aren't available to artifacts.

Artifacts can store data between sessions, so you can build things like journals, trackers, and collaborative tools. Storage is either personal or shared:

The first time you use an artifact with shared storage, Claude shows a confirmation explaining that your data will be visible to others using it.

Storage has a 20 MB limit per artifact and accepts text only, no images, files, or binary data. Personal and shared storage are kept separate, and unpublishing a legacy artifact permanently deletes all its stored data.

Claude Code can publish its session output as an artifact, a live interactive page at a private URL. The page updates in place as your session continues, and you can share it. An artifact might be a pull-request walkthrough with annotated diffs, a dashboard built from session data, or an investigation timeline that fills in as Claude works.

You can also make designs and docs from Claude Code. Use /design for Claude Design, or ask for a doc. On desktop, the doc opens in the side panel. In the terminal, Claude gives you a link to open it on the web.

To learn how to create, update, and share artifacts in Claude Code, see the artifacts documentation on Claude Code Docs.

Artifacts made in Claude Cowork before August 19, 2026 are live artifacts. They keep working, but you can't edit them in place. Learn more in Use live artifacts in Claude Cowork.

Artifacts start private to you. Learn more about sharing artifacts, including who can open them and what they see.