When the creative juices are flowing, the last thing you want to do is interrupt your process to wrestle with technical details of bringing your vision to life. With artifacts, when you have a creative epiphany, there's no slowing down, and no waiting for tech teams to support. Just tell Claude what you want, and watch it appear right before your eyes. Artifacts keep you in the flow state and help you deliver a working app prototype in minutes.
After reading this guide, you'll know when to use artifacts to illustrate ideas, and how to create, customize, and share them right from your Claude app.
What are artifacts and when would you use them?
Artifacts are interactive apps that emerge from your conversations with Claude. They let you generate material like code, documents, and apps from Claude app chat.
These are great for when you want to quickly spin up any kind of digital product — from a serious business tool to a fun game for your kids. Consider these examples:
Product prototypes —You don’t need to be a designer or engineer to mock up a new landing page or app. Just ask Claude for what you need. Like this mood canvas that creates colorful visualizations based on user input.
Tailored AI assistants — Tired of answering the same questions over and over again? Claude can build chatbots that have context to handle common queries, letting you focus on other work. Like a wedding planner bot that knows all of your vendor details, a recipe helper that only suggests meals your kids will eat, or this email writing assistant that turns raw thoughts into polished communications.
Learning games — A parent wanting to help their child learn multiplication tables could describe an interactive game where kids battle monsters by solving math problems. A few turns later, they’ll have a working prototype. Or to learn for yourself, try this language tutor that lets you chat and learn in a language of your choice.
Small business solutions — A small business owner needing inventory tracking can describe their workflow to Claude and create a custom tool that perfectly suits their needs. Just like this project dashboard generator that takes user input and provides Gantt charts, progress bars, and milestone tracking.
The options are really endless. For more inspiration, visit the “Artifacts” tab in your Claude app, or try asking Claude what you should build. (Note that the artifacts tab is only available on free, pro, and max plans, and currently does not exist on mobile).
Creating your first artifact
The best way to create an artifact is to describe a problem you want to solve, then let Claude help you refine it. Here's a step-by-step approach:
Head to “artifacts” in your sidebar: While you can create artifacts in any chat, starting here signals your intent to Claude, so it can help you build the best possible version of your app.
Start with exploring your problem: Share your ideas (and your problems) with Claude — like "I wish I had a better way of teaching the water cycle to my class, they seem so bored.”
Let Claude interview you: Claude will ask follow-up questions to clarify your vision. For example, what age range are you trying to teach?
Ask Claude to build it: Once you've clarified your idea through the discussion, directly request the artifact with phrases like "Can you create this for me?" or "Let's build this now." Claude will then generate the artifact based on your conversation.
Note that if you want to be able to talk to Claude within your artifact, you’ll need to toggle on Create AI powered artifacts (currently in Beta) within your app Settings.
And that’s it! With just a few turns you’ll have a functioning app that you can further customize to fit your needs.
Tips for improving your artifact
Your initial creation is just the starting point. From here, you can request changes, feedback, and more to get your artifact into a sharable state. Here’s 3 tips to get the most out of artifacts:
Iterate with follow-up prompts: Simply ask Claude to modify your artifact ("make the buttons bigger," "add a timer," "change the color scheme"). Each request builds on previous versions while Claude maintains context about what you've built and why.
Debug through conversation: When something breaks, either click "Fix with Claude" or describe the problem in plain language ("the calculator isn't working with decimals," "the game crashes at level 3"). No need to understand technical error messages. For even deeper understanding, turn on extended thinking or use a more intelligent model.
Experiment with forking: Go back to any previous message, click "Edit" to create a new conversation branch, and try different approaches. You can always return to your original version, encouraging bold experimentation with styles, features, or entirely different directions.
Sharing your creations
Once your artifact is working how you want it to, you can share it with friends and collaborators in just a few clicks.
Share your finished artifacts with others by clicking the Publish button to generate a link. Anyone with the link can access your creation until you un-publish it.
Viewers have two options when interacting with your artifact:
View-only — logged out users can use and interact with your artifact without signing in (with the exception of AI powered artifacts, where sign in is required), but can't make changes.
Remix & customize — Claude users can create their own copy to modify and iterate on your artifact, but don’t worry! Your copy stays unchanged.
More resources to get started
Browse all artifacts for more inspiration. Pro-tip: click “customize” to copy the artifact and make changes for yourself.
Learn more about artifacts in our intro to artifacts video.
Visit the Claude.ai support docs for help with any other questions.