Using Claude's Artifacts & Projects

So far you've been using Claude as a conversation partner — you ask, it answers, and that's it. But Claude has two features that transform it from a simple chat tool into an organized, persistent workspace: Artifacts and Projects. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use both to dramatically improve the quality and efficiency of your AI-powered work.

What Are Artifacts?

When you ask Claude to create something substantial — a document, a piece of code, a table, a diagram, or any structured content — it can place that output in an Artifact. An Artifact appears in a separate panel alongside your conversation, giving you a clean, focused view of the content Claude created.

Think of it this way: the conversation is where you and Claude talk. The Artifact panel is where the actual work product lives. This separation is powerful because it lets you iterate on the output without losing it in a wall of chat messages.

How Artifacts Work

When Claude generates something that qualifies as an Artifact, it automatically appears in the right-side panel. From there, you can:

• View it clearly — the content is displayed in a clean, formatted view separate from the conversation
• Copy it instantly — one click to copy the entire Artifact to your clipboard, ready to paste into any document, email, or tool
• Iterate on it — ask Claude to revise, expand, or restructure the Artifact, and it updates in place rather than generating a brand new response
• Preview code — if the Artifact is HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, Claude can render a live preview so you can see what it looks like before you use it

Not everything Claude produces becomes an Artifact. Short answers, explanations, and conversational replies stay in the chat. Artifacts are reserved for substantial, standalone content — the things you'd actually want to save, copy, or build upon.

Practical Uses for Artifacts

Artifacts shine brightest when you're creating something you'll want to refine through multiple rounds of feedback. Here are the most valuable use cases for business:

Creating Documents You Can Iterate On

Instead of getting a blog post or report buried in a chat response, Claude places it in an Artifact where you can see the full document at a glance. You might say: "Write a 500-word product description for my online course about email marketing." Claude creates the document as an Artifact. Then you follow up: "Make the opening more compelling and add bullet points for the key benefits." Claude updates the same Artifact — no scrolling through old messages to find the latest version.

Building Code Snippets

If you ask Claude to write a script, a formula, or a web page, the code appears in an Artifact with syntax highlighting and, for web content, a live preview. This is incredibly useful even if you're not a developer — you can see what the code produces before you use it. We'll cover this in depth in Lesson 5.

Generating Structured Content

Tables, comparison charts, outlines, and frameworks all work beautifully as Artifacts. For example:

• "Create a comparison table of the top 5 project management tools for freelancers" — you get a clean, formatted table you can copy directly into a presentation or document
• "Build a content calendar outline for my social media for the next 4 weeks" — you get a structured outline you can iterate on until it's exactly right
• "Draft an onboarding checklist for new freelance clients" — you get a polished checklist you can refine and reuse

Creating Visual Designs

Claude can generate SVG graphics, diagrams, and simple web-based visuals as Artifacts with live previews. Need a flowchart for a business process? A simple organizational chart? A wireframe for a landing page? Claude can create these as interactive, visual Artifacts you can see immediately — no design software needed.

Claude Projects

If Artifacts are about creating better individual outputs, Projects are about creating a better overall context for your work. A Claude Project is essentially a workspace where you can store reference materials, set custom instructions, and have conversations that all share the same background knowledge.

What Makes Projects Powerful

Without Projects, every new conversation with Claude starts from zero. You have to re-explain who you are, what your business does, what tone you want, and what context matters. That's tedious and wasteful. Projects fix this by letting you:

• Create named projects — organize your work by client, business function, or task type (e.g., "Content Marketing," "Client Proposals," "Product Development")
• Upload reference documents — add your style guides, brand documents, product information, client briefs, or any material Claude should know about. Claude reads these documents and uses them as context in every conversation within the project.
• Set project instructions — write custom instructions that tell Claude your preferred tone, audience, formatting rules, or any other guidelines. These instructions apply to every conversation in the project automatically.
• Have multiple conversations — each conversation within a project inherits all the reference docs and instructions, so you never have to repeat yourself

How This Creates Persistent Context

Think of a Project like briefing a new team member. Instead of explaining your brand voice every single time you need something written, you brief them once — here's our style guide, here's our target audience, here's how we talk about our products — and from then on, they just know. Projects do the same thing for Claude.

The result is dramatically better output from the very first message in any conversation. Claude doesn't just write generic content — it writes content that sounds like your brand, addresses your specific audience, and follows your established guidelines. Every time. Without being asked.

Building a Business Project

Let's walk through setting up a real Project for a specific business task. This process takes about 10 minutes and saves you hours over time.

Step 1: Create the Project

In Claude, navigate to your Projects area and create a new project. Give it a clear, specific name. Instead of something vague like "Marketing," try "Q1 2026 Content Marketing — [Your Business Name]" or "Client Proposals — Web Design Services." Specific names help you find the right project instantly when you have several.

Step 2: Upload Reference Documents

Add the documents Claude needs to do great work in this project. For a content marketing project, you might upload:

• Your brand style guide (tone of voice, words to use and avoid, formatting preferences)
• A document describing your target audience in detail
• Examples of content you've published that represent your ideal voice and quality
• Product or service descriptions with key features and benefits

You don't need to upload everything you've ever created. Focus on the documents that establish how you want Claude to work and what it needs to know. Quality over quantity.

Step 3: Set Project Instructions

Write clear instructions that tell Claude how to behave in this project. Here's an example for a content marketing project:

"You are a content writer for [Business Name]. Our target audience is [describe audience]. Our brand voice is professional but approachable — we avoid jargon and explain concepts clearly. Always write in active voice. Keep paragraphs short (2–3 sentences max). Include actionable takeaways in every piece. When suggesting topics, prioritize ones that solve specific problems our audience faces."

Good project instructions are concise but specific. They tell Claude what to do, how to do it, and who it's doing it for.

Step 4: Start Conversations Within the Project

Now when you start a new conversation inside this project, Claude already knows your brand, your audience, your tone, and your preferences. Your first message can jump straight to the task: "Write a blog post about 5 ways small business owners can save time this quarter." No preamble needed — Claude has all the context from the project setup.

Notice how the output immediately reflects your style guide, targets your specific audience, and follows your formatting preferences. That's the power of Projects.

Best Practices for Projects

After working with Projects for a while, here's what separates people who get great results from those who get mediocre ones:

Keep Project Instructions Concise

Long, rambling instructions dilute Claude's focus. Aim for instructions that fit in a short paragraph or a focused set of bullet points. If you need more than half a page, you probably need two separate projects.

Upload Only Relevant Documents

More documents don't mean better results. If you upload 20 documents but only 3 are relevant to most conversations, the noise can actually reduce quality. Be selective — upload what Claude genuinely needs to reference, and remove documents that have become outdated.

Organize by Client or Business Function

Create separate projects for distinct areas of your business. A freelancer might have:

• "Client A — Blog Content" with that client's brand docs and content guidelines
• "Client B — Email Marketing" with a different set of reference materials
• "My Business — Proposals" with your portfolio, pricing, and proposal templates
• "My Business — Social Media" with your content calendar and brand voice guide

This organization ensures every conversation starts with exactly the right context — no more, no less.

Review and Update Regularly

Your business evolves, and your Projects should too. Set a monthly reminder to review your active projects. Update reference documents when your offerings change, refine instructions based on what's been working, and archive projects you're no longer using. A well-maintained Project library is a powerful business asset.