What you will learn:
Is it just me or is it getting hard to keep up with all the “Claude’s” that pop up once a week:
Claude Code, Claude Design, Claude Cowork, Claude Projects…
But let’s take it all just one step at a time…big yoga breaths….breathe in….aaaaand now I’m ready.
Let’s dive in:
What are Claude Artifacts?
Claude Artifacts are a dedicated feature from Claude that allows the AI to create, preview and share content in a dedicated side panel next to your chat.
This content could be in the form of:
Documents (Markdown or plain text)
Code snippets
Single-page HTML websites
Diagrams and flowcharts
Interactive React components
In plain English:
Artifacts are sharable pieces of content that get separated from the chat so that you can access and share them easily.
In Plain English
You have probably already come across an Artifact from Claude before without even realising.
This is because Claude is smart and makes Artifacts automatically when it thinks it ought to.
For example, if you ask for a long piece of code, rather than giving you all of this in one chat, it will give you the code in a separate side panel next to the chat.
Maybe like me you have just accepted this neat feature and not thought too much more about it.
But this is fact, an Artifact, working in the background.
Why Are Artifacts Useful?
The idea behind artifacts is to make your life easier!
(aww thanks Anthropic!)
The team behind Claude realised that chats were getting longer and longer and it was getting more difficult for users to find useful content.
Artifacts make it easier to find, share and modify content that you might have created and perhaps want to continue working on later.
You don’t need to scroll through that really long chat, looking for the useful thing you are SURE Claude created at some point…honestly.
Finding the important stuff when you REALLY need to.
Artifacts ensure that the useful things get separated out from the chat, for you to do something with them later.
So in short: Artifacts are very useful for taking something Claude has created and doing something more with it.
How do I use Artifacts?
Well the good news is, you probably already are using Artifacts!
By default, Artifacts are automatically generated by Claude when it believes you have created something that you will want to reference later.
(you can see the full criteria for when Claude creates an Artifact here)
You can also trigger Claude to create an Artifact by asking it to “create an artifact from this” specifically. Then you can be sure that an artifact gets created.
Once you have an Artifact created, there are a few things you can then do with them:
Download it
Add it to a Project
Publish it
Downloading is great for sharing code snippets or mock-ups further with the team, without needing to search through your chats.
Adding to Projects gives more context to your sorted project chats and data, helping your project to grow.
Publishing an Artifact will make the artifact publicly available.
This means, anyone with the link can view and interact with it.
This is great if you want to share something cool you have created with followers or colleagues.
Personally, I really like Artifacts but since they are already running automatically for me in the background, this article is mainly just a “nice to understand” piece.
You don’t need to actively do much more to continue getting the most out of Claude Artifacts.
(phew)
Summary
The most important bits from this post:
Artifacts are Claude's way of separating useful content from the chat so you're not hunting through a massive conversation looking for that thing Claude made you.
Artifacts come in different shapes and sizes: documents, code, websites, diagrams and interactive components. Claude creates them automatically when it thinks you'll need them later.
You can download them, add them to a Project, or publish them: publishing gives anyone with the link access to view and interact with it. Great for sharing your Claude creations with the world.
