Claude Artifacts are the things Claude makes beside the chat: a document, a deck, a design, a dashboard or a small working tool. Ask for “a tracker for my client invoices” and an app opens in its own pane, ready to click.
They changed on September 16, 2026. New artifacts now start from templates, older chat artifacts became “legacy”, and the rules for sharing, saving data and reading your apps moved with them. Much of what you read online about artifacts was written before that.
This guide uses Anthropic’s own help pages, read on November 5, 2026. It covers what artifacts are now, which plans get what, how sharing and storage work, and the limits you hit once a tool needs to outlive the chat. For that last case, we also show the Custom board in Context Board, where any agent you use builds the tool and keeps it current.
- An artifact is anything Claude makes for you. Docs, decks, designs, dashboards, diagrams, single-page sites and small tools open beside the chat and are saved to the Artifacts tab.
- Since September 16, 2026, they start from templates. Docs, Slides and Design are on every plan, Free included. Dashboards and Motion are betas on paid and team plans.
- Saving data and reading your apps need a paid plan. Storage is 20 MB of text per artifact, and each person who opens it uses their own connected apps and their own Claude limits.
- They live inside Claude. An artifact runs while it is open, can’t run on a schedule, and an HTML export loses its saving, Claude calls and connected apps.
- Want the tool to stay, for every agent you use? A Context Board Custom board is an app your agent builds whose records Claude, Codex, ChatGPT and Cursor can all read and change. Free for 3 days, then $12 a month.
What Claude Artifacts are
Anthropic’s features page puts it in one line: “An artifact is anything Claude makes for you.” Its help article says Claude makes one for substantial, self-contained content, usually over 15 lines, that you are likely to edit, reuse or come back to. The examples it gives are documents, code, single-page websites, images, diagrams and flowcharts, dashboards and small interactive tools.
An artifact opens in a pane beside the conversation. You can keep asking Claude to change it, edit it yourself, share it by link, and find it again later in the Artifacts tab.
Under the hood they are still the formats you may know from 2024 and 2025. Anthropic’s file creation FAQ says you can still create “HTML or react apps, markdown documents, mermaid diagrams, SVGs”.
Since September 2026, new artifacts start from a template:
| Template | What it makes | Plans |
|---|---|---|
| Docs | Living documents. Export to Word, PDF, Markdown or Google Docs | Every plan, Free included |
| Slides | Decks you present inside Claude. Export to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides | Every plan, Free included |
| Design | Mockups, prototypes, one-pagers and landing pages. Export as .zip, PDF, PowerPoint or HTML | Every plan, Free included |
| Dashboards (beta) | Dashboards built from your data | Pro, Max, Ultra, Team, Enterprise |
| Motion (beta) | Animated explainers, exported as MP4 | Team and Enterprise |
If the document has to stay in Google Docs, our guide to using Claude with Google Docs covers the add-on that edits inside a doc and the connector that edits one from a chat.
If you mainly want decks, our guide to making slides with Claude compares the Slides template with Claude for PowerPoint and the other routes.
What changed on September 16, 2026
Anthropic’s release note for that day is titled “Create designs, decks, and docs in any conversation”. Artifacts became one place for everything Claude makes, starting from the templates above.
The chat artifacts people made before then are now legacy artifacts. In Anthropic’s words: “They keep working, and you can still publish and share them, but you can’t make new ones.”
Three older rules you may still read about no longer hold for new artifacts:
- Storage needed publishing. It used to. New artifacts can store data without being published.
- No outside calls. The July 2025 AI-powered artifacts had no outside calls and no storage. Today they can read your connected apps and keep data.
- The Feature preview toggle. The switch now lives under Capabilities, as Create and edit files.
How to turn on artifacts, and which plans get what
Artifacts depend on one setting. On Free, Pro, Max and Ultra, go to Settings, Capabilities and turn on Create and edit files, called “Cloud code execution and file creation” in the older settings layout. On Team and Enterprise, an owner turns it on under Organization settings, Capabilities.
Then just ask. “Make me a one-page plan for the launch”, “build a calculator for my quote prices” or “turn this into slides” all open an artifact.
| Feature | Free | Pro, Max, Ultra | Team, Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Docs, Slides, Design | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dashboards (beta) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Motion (beta) | No | No | Yes |
| Save data between sessions | No | Yes | Yes |
| Read and write your connected apps | No | Yes | Yes |
| Share with your organization | No | No | Yes |
On your phone: in the iOS and Android apps you can ask for artifacts in any chat, open them from the Artifacts tab and edit them. Sharing settings are changed on the web or in Claude Desktop.
In Claude Code: Claude Code can publish a single HTML page as an artifact to a private claude.ai link, per its artifacts docs. Each publish is a new version. It needs a paid plan and a claude.ai sign-in, not an API key.
How to share or publish an artifact
Every artifact starts private. Anthropic’s sharing article says nothing is shared until you share it. From the Share button you can open it to:
- Specific people, by email, in beta on every plan. They sign in with that address.
- Your organization, on Team and Enterprise.
- Anyone with the link, on every plan. On Team and Enterprise, only if an owner allows outside sharing.
Each person gets Can view, Commenter or Can edit. Someone with a public link can usually open it without an account, but Docs always ask for a sign-in and are view-only.
Before you send one:
- 50 outside invites per artifact, and an invite runs out after 30 days.
- No link sharing for an artifact that connects to other websites, or one with uploaded files that haven’t passed a check.
- Signed-out viewers see less. Connected apps and Claude features don’t work for them.
- Unpublishing is one way for a legacy artifact. You can’t publish the same one again, and its stored data is deleted for good.
You can also start from someone else’s published legacy artifact. Anthropic calls it building on a published artifact: your copy is separate, and nothing you do changes the original. It works on Free, Pro, Max and Ultra.
Apps that call Claude, save data and read your apps
The interesting artifacts are small apps, and three features make them useful.
They can call Claude. Anthropic launched Claude-powered artifacts in 2025. The person using the app signs in with their own Claude account, and the use counts against their own plan. You pay nothing when they use it, and nobody needs an API key. New artifacts ask permission the first time they use Claude. Heavy use eats the same pool as your chats, which our guide to Claude’s usage limits explains.
They can keep data. “Artifacts can store data between sessions, so you can build things like journals, trackers, and collaborative tools,” says the help article. You choose personal storage, private to each person, or shared storage that everyone using it sees. The cap is 20 MB per artifact, text only, on Pro and above. Shared storage asks for a confirmation the first time, and Anthropic suggests checking for it before you type anything sensitive.
They can read and write your apps. An artifact can use the apps you connected to Claude, such as Asana, Google Calendar or Slack, and your custom connectors. You approve the apps and tools on first use. Tools that need your approval for every action are not available to artifacts. In a shared artifact, everyone connects their own apps, so each viewer sees their own data.
What they can’t do. For Claude Code artifacts, Anthropic spells out the walls. Each one is a single page with no backend, so it can’t sign people in. Network calls reach only the page’s own address and Google Fonts. Downloads need a declared capability. Anthropic’s own tutorial adds that an HTML export loses saving, Claude and connected tools. To ship one as real software, it says to ask Claude for the code and build it in Claude Code.
Where to find your artifacts
Everything you make is saved to the Artifacts tab in your Claude sidebar, at claude.ai/artifacts, so you can open it from any conversation. Claude Code artifacts have their own gallery at claude.ai/code/artifacts, and /artifacts in Claude Code lists the ones you own and the ones shared with you.
Editing an earlier message in a chat starts a separate branch with its own artifacts, so a later version can sit in a branch you’re not looking at. And a GitHub issue opened September 15, 2026 reports the Claude Code gallery leaving out artifacts older than early September, though they still open from their links.
The limits you’ll hit
Artifacts are excellent for a first version. These are the walls people report once a tool becomes part of their week:
- It runs only while it’s open. Anthropic describes refreshing when the page loads and on a timer while you have it open. Nothing in its docs lets an artifact run on a schedule or in the background, so nothing updates while you’re away.
- Small storage, text only. 20 MB per artifact, no images or files. Fine for a habit tracker, tight for a year of client notes.
- One page, no backend. No sign-in of its own, and outside calls are fenced off.
- Only Claude works in it. Codex, ChatGPT or Cursor can’t open your artifact and update its data. The export drops the parts that make it an app.
- Long ones get cut off. A Descript guide notes that Claude “is not supposed to truncate content within the Artifact, it often does.”
- Busy apps can stall. A March 2026 r/ClaudeAI thread describes interactive artifacts that stop after three or four Claude calls: “No error, no recovery, just… stops.”
None of these are bugs in the idea. An artifact is a page that lives inside Claude. When you need a tool that lives in your business instead, you need somewhere else to keep it.
When the tool should outlive the chat: a Custom board
ContextBolt is ours, so weigh the bias. We built the Custom board in Context Board for exactly the point where an artifact stops being enough.
You describe the tool, your agent writes it as an app that fills the board, and everything you type into it is kept as a record. The difference is who else can work in it. Any agent connected to Context Board, whether Claude, Codex, ChatGPT or Cursor, reads the same records and can add, change or remove them. The app shows each change at once, and Board activity says which agent made it.
- Fernhill BakeryStudio plan12 days left
- Brightside YogaStudio Plus9 days left
- Kiln & CoStudio plan4 days left
- Claude added Harbor Yoga to Studio onboarding2m
- Codex moved Northwind to First class14m
- Codex noted: waits on group bookings14m
- Claude added a filter by plan1h
The two side by side, for a tool you keep. Anthropic’s side is from the pages linked above, and ours from the Custom board page.
| Context Board Custom board | Claude artifact | |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds and updates it | Any agent you connect: Claude, Codex, ChatGPT, Cursor. Board activity names the agent behind each change | Claude |
| Where your data lives | Records on the board, up to 2,000 a board, saved on every computer you use | Artifact storage, 20 MB of text, on paid plans |
| If you delete something | Undo, and a 30-day trash for deleted records | Unpublishing a legacy artifact deletes its stored data for good |
| Beside the rest of your work | Yes: your dashboards, docs, sheets, client pipeline and plans sit in the same workspace | In the Artifacts tab, one artifact at a time |
| Internet access | None: the app runs sealed off, so it can’t send your records anywhere | Your connected apps, on paid plans |
| Cost | Free for 3 days, then $12 a month for every kind of board | In your Claude plan. Storage and apps need Pro or above |
One honest gap: a Custom board isn’t shared by link yet. It holds your own tool and its records. If you need a public calculator for your website visitors, a published artifact is the better fit today. You can duplicate a Custom board, or start a new board from its app for the next client.
The way we’d use both: try the idea as an artifact in a chat. Once it’s a tool you open every week, and you want Codex or ChatGPT to update it too, ask your agent to build it as a Custom board. Our post on what an agentic workspace is explains why one shared place gets more useful with every agent you add.
How to build a Custom board with your agent
- Connect your agent once. Context Board gives you one address. Add it to Claude, Codex, ChatGPT on plans that allow a custom connector, or Cursor, and approve it on the Allow page. The connect guide has each app’s steps.
- Describe the tool. “Build me a client intake tracker: each client, their budget, and four steps from first call to signed.” Your agent writes the app and it fills the board.
- Use it. Type a row and press Enter. It’s saved, and Undo takes it back.
- Let the other agents in. Tell Codex “two studios signed up today” and its write lands in the app at once, signed in Board activity.
- Change it by asking. Ask for a filter, a new field or an easier way to add, and the app changes while your records stay as they are.
Does Gemini have artifacts?
Google’s version is Gemini Canvas, launched March 18, 2025. It builds and previews HTML and React apps, games and documents, exports documents to Google Docs and shares by link, and Google says it is available to all Gemini users. Like an artifact, it lives inside its own assistant.
Which to use
Claude Artifacts are the fastest way to get a document, a deck or a small tool out of a conversation, and since September 2026 the templates make them better at decks and docs too. Use them freely for one-off work.
When a tool becomes part of how you run the business, the questions change: will it still be there next month, can it hold a year of records, and can the other agents you use keep it current? That’s the job of a Custom board. Context Board is free for 3 days, then $12 a month for the whole workspace.