What is a Claude artifact? Definition, types, and how to share one

Ask Claude for a landing page, a budget calculator or a one-page brief, and the result does not appear as a wall of text in the chat. It opens in a panel next to the conversation, ready to use. That panel holds a Claude artifact, and understanding what it is changes how you work with it: what you can export, who can open it, and what happens when you want it online for good. If your goal is to put one on the web, our guide on how to host a Claude artifact covers the export and the publishing steps for every type.

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What is a Claude artifact?

Anthropic’s help center gives the shortest definition: an artifact is “anything Claude makes for you that you’d put in front of someone.” In practice that means a design, a deck, a document, a dashboard or a small interactive tool.

The difference with a normal answer is where the content lives. A chat answer is text in a conversation. An artifact is a separate object with its own panel and its own export and share controls. You can keep refining it with new prompts, and it stays one piece of work rather than a series of code blocks scattered through the thread.

Claude typically creates an artifact when the output is substantial and self-contained: something you would save, reuse or show someone. A two-line explanation stays in the chat. A full page, a long document or a working tool becomes an artifact.

Types of Claude artifacts

Anthropic lists documents, code snippets, single-page websites, images, diagrams and flowcharts, dashboards and small interactive tools. In 2026 these come in a few families, each with its own export options.

• Documents. Briefs, reports, guides and long-form text, editable in place and exportable to Word, PDF, Markdown or Google Docs.
• Slides. Presentations you can edit slide by slide, present from Claude, or export to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides.
• Designs. Web pages, landing pages, mockups and visual layouts. This is the family that matters most for anyone who wants a website, because designs export as standalone HTML or a ZIP.
• Dashboards. Charts and data views, in beta on paid plans.
• Interactive tools. Calculators, quizzes, games, converters and other small apps that run in the browser.
• Motion. Animations exported as MP4 video, in beta on Team and Enterprise plans.

Artifacts made in a chat before September 16, 2026 are called legacy artifacts. They keep working and can still be published and shared, but Claude no longer creates new ones in that format.

How Claude artifacts work

You do not need a special command. Ask for something substantial (“build me a pricing page for a yoga studio”, “make an interactive mortgage calculator”) and Claude creates the artifact in its panel. Each follow-up prompt updates the same artifact, so you iterate on one object instead of copying new versions out of the chat.

A few settings and capabilities shape what an artifact can do:

• Code execution. Artifacts require the “Cloud code execution and file creation” option to be turned on in Claude’s settings.
• Artifacts that use Claude. An artifact can call Claude itself, for example a tool that summarizes text you paste into it. No API key is needed, and the usage counts against each person’s own plan.
• Storage. An artifact can store data, capped at 20 MB per artifact, text only (no images or files). Personal and shared storage are kept separate.

Artifacts also exist outside the chat. Claude Code can create them on every plan that includes it, which is useful when a coding session produces something worth showing as a page.

How sharing a Claude artifact works

This is the part that changed most in 2026, and the part that trips people up.

For artifacts made since September 16, 2026, sharing is a set of access settings: anyone with the link, specific people invited by email (beta, paid plans), or members of your organization on Team and Enterprise. The rule for viewers is the same in every case. Anthropic’s help center says: “Everyone needs a Claude account. People without one can’t open a shared artifact, even with the link.”

The exception is a legacy artifact published from a chat on a Free, Pro or Max plan. A published legacy artifact can be viewed and used by anyone with the link, without a Claude account. It can also be embedded on a website with an embed code. If you unpublish it, the link stops working, the stored data is deleted, and that artifact cannot be published again.

So the answer to “can I send this artifact to a client?” depends on the client. A colleague with a Claude account, yes. A customer, a recruiter or a friend who has never signed up, not with a share link. Our step-by-step guide on how to publish a Claude artifact covers both routes: sharing from Claude, and exporting it to your own URL.

Why it matters if you build websites with Claude

Most people who search for Claude artifacts want to make something real: a landing page, a portfolio, a tool for their customers. For that, the account requirement is the main constraint, and the export is the way around it.

Export the design as standalone HTML, or download the code of a legacy artifact and save it as index.html, and you have an ordinary web page. Hosted on a regular web host, it opens in any browser, at an address you choose, with no sign-in. On Supadrop that takes about thirty seconds: drop the file, pick a subdomain, share the link or the QR code that comes with it.

What you give up is the Claude connection. Layouts, animations, calculators and charts built on embedded data keep working. AI features and stored data do not, because they live in Claude. If the artifact is mostly a page, that trade costs nothing. If it is mostly an AI tool, keep sharing it inside Claude for people who have an account.

Common misconceptions

”An artifact is just code”

Code is one kind of artifact, but most are not code at all from the user’s point of view. A document, a slide deck or a dashboard is an artifact too, and each has its own export formats. Even a web page made in Claude is better handled through the design export than by copying code out of the chat.

”A shared link makes it public”

Not anymore. A share link set to “anyone with the link” still requires the viewer to sign in to Claude, unless the artifact is a legacy one that was published. For a truly public page, the artifact needs to leave Claude.

”Exporting breaks the artifact”

Exporting breaks only what depends on Claude. A static page, a quiz, a calculator or a game made of HTML, CSS and JavaScript runs exactly the same in any browser. Test the exported file by opening it on your computer: if it works there, it will work online.

Practical next steps

If you want to see what other AI tools produce and how easily they export, our comparison of the best vibe coding tools covers Lovable, Bolt.new, v0, Cursor and Claude Code side by side.

If you already have an artifact you want online, follow the steps to publish an AI-built website: export it, check it for private data, then drop it into a host. For a single HTML file, our free HTML hosting guide shows the same flow in more detail.

Ready to put your artifact on a link anyone can open? Start free with Supadrop: 15 days, no credit card, then from $5/mo billed yearly ($7 month to month).

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Frequently asked questions