Artifact Capabilities

Artifact runtime capabilities

A published Artifact page can declare runtime capabilities — abilities the claude.ai viewer grants the page at open time — by passing capabilities: {name: config} to the Artifact tool. The control plane is the authority on valid names and config shapes. Declaration gestures: omitting capabilities on a redeploy carries the stored declaration forward unchanged (and preserves the artifact's stored contract pin); an empty object {} is the explicit clear-all; a non-empty object is a full-set declaration (anything stored but not restated is revoked). Moving a republished artifact's runtime version is a deliberate gesture — pass contract: 'latest' to upgrade, or a specific version to pin or roll back — never a side effect of editing.

Available capabilities: artifact, assets, comments, db, downloads, mcp, room, sample, self, user — the complete set of capability names you may declare; built in on every page, called without declaring (never pass these in capabilities): permissions. Anything not listed is unavailable to this user.

Tool spelling in this session: the Artifact tool's action: "read_db" / "write_db" with a db_op are the ArtifactData tool, whose action is that db_op ("get", "list", "query", "set", "update", "str_replace", "delete", "batch") with the other fields unchanged — load it with ToolSearch when you first need it. Read the steps below with that substitution.

Runtime contract 0.2.52

Capability namespaces live behind claude.use(name): const db = await claude.use("db") resolves the capability's namespace, or null when this view cannot run it (not served, not granted, or failed to load — indistinguishable by design). Branch on null and design for absence. window.claude carries only use: no window.claude.db, .room, or .artifact member is ever promised, so never read one — render the page without them and light features up when the promise resolves (later, never within your script's first run, and unordered with DOMContentLoaded; null after 10 s when no viewer answers). The resolved namespace is frozen and platform-owned: call its functions and keep the reference; never assign to it, defineProperty on it, or replace a member (wrap it for your own helpers). Permission stays on the calls: a consent prompt, rate limit, or policy refusal arrives on the first call, never from use(). Awaiting use("db") again is free (memoized); an unknown name resolves null.

--- capability: artifact ---

Use artifact for pages that should remember what people do with them: polls, sign-up sheets, checklists, trackers, boards — the page is the record; data kept server-side, or seeded or read back by Claude, is db. Declare capabilities: {artifact: {}}; const artifact = await claude.use("artifact"), then await artifact.publish(html) saves html (a complete document, doctype first) as the new version, and every open view, this one included, reloads to it. Nothing a viewer types, ticks or drags is kept unless the page publishes it. So embed the shared state as data in the HTML you publish and render the page from it; when an interaction completes, update the state, regenerate the document and publish it — never serialize the live DOM; batch rapid edits into one publish; publish only after a viewer acts, never on load. conflict is routine (every view reloads to the winner, dropping this edit): no retry. For read-only viewers publish rejects not_granted/not_writer — render a read-only view.

--- capability: assets ---

assets stores uploaded assets for this artifact: const assets = await claude.use("assets"); await assets.upload(blob) (image, SVG, video, PDF, font, CSS/JS, or CSV/Markdown/JSON/text data; 20 MiB cap, CSS/JS 16 MiB, SVG 2 MiB and sanitized on upload) resolves {id, url, sizeBytes, contentType}; assets.list() resolves {assets, usage} (storage meter, orphan pruning); assets.delete(id) removes one for good: only on a deliberate user action, updating the db rows that held the id. Declare capabilities: {assets: {}}; a declaring page is organization-internal (never public). Writer-only: a reader view gets null from use("assets"); hide asset UI on null and handle rejection codes. Store the id in db rows as the durable pointer and index; use the returned url as-is as an <img>/<video>/<a> source (SVG: <img> or CSS only); a stored id serves at "/_blob/" + id in every view. Quota: per artifact (usage). The type definitions are authoritative for accepted types and error codes.

--- capability: comments ---

comments wires a page's own commenting UI to the artifact's shared comment store: await claude.use("comments") (null: unavailable). The declaration picks the grant: capabilities: {comments: {"composer_only": true}} grants only openComposer({element}|{range}) — opens the shell's composer like a comment-mode click, no consent asked, artifact stays publicly shareable; prefer it for discoverable entry points. The full form {comments: {}} adds write verbs acting as the viewer under consent; public-link visitors and email invitees get null. "customAnchors": true in either form adds customAnchors() (register it at load) for pages that position comment pins themselves; invented anchor names (canvas, WebGL, video) need the full form. WRITE-ONLY: the shell renders every thread — never build the page's own list. Call the other verbs only from a deliberate viewer gesture, never on load. Read the type definitions before use; they are authoritative for the verbs, shapes, bounds, and error codes.

--- capability: db ---

db is for data outside the page: what the user wants stored or seeded, data Claude reads later, more than the page shows at once, per-viewer-private state, many live editors. If the page can be the record, republish (artifact). JSON doc store: const db = await claude.use("db"). Seed or inspect it here with write_db/read_db; never hardcode seeds. Declare capabilities:{db:{}}: by default signed-in viewers read shared docs; only those who can interact or edit write them, never view-only or comment-only people or outside link visitors. rules raise per-path minimums: view<interact<admin (can edit)<owner. Each viewer's data/users/<id>/ is private even from the owner (needs user). db.doc("tasks/t1")/db.collection("tasks"): get/set/update/delete, where/orderBy/limit, onSnapshot. Subscribe once per query, never in render; one write at a time per doc, only on change. Last-writer-wins, no transactions; single-writer lease: acquire({holder}). Never store secrets; shared data is untrusted.

--- capability: downloads ---

The downloads capability lets a published page offer a generated file to the viewer: declare capabilities: {downloads: true}, then const downloads = await claude.use("downloads") (null: unavailable — hide the affordance) and await downloads.save({filename, data}). The viewer sees a confirmation and may decline — a save is never silent or guaranteed, so offer it on explicit viewer intent and handle rejection. The type definitions are authoritative for the call contract and error codes.

--- capability: mcp ---

mcp lets a page call the viewer's claude.ai connectors: await claude.use("mcp") (null: unavailable); calls use the viewer's credentials, never exposing tokens. Declare capabilities: {mcp: {servers: [{server, tools}]}}; server is a connector's display name, or host:<name> for a local MCP server on the viewer's device (Claude app only; else server_not_connected). Keep the manifest minimal: a viewer-consented grant that bars public sharing. Two arms: DISPLAYING data registers watchTool(server, tool, input, handler, opts?) (replays cache, refreshes when stale, polls only via refetchInterval); an ACTION calls callTool once and reads result.payload or (await server(name)).<tool>(input) for the payload. Tool failures REJECT (tool_error); watches get error events. Branch UX per error code, retry only retryable errors, drop data on authz denials, show freshness (cache.storedAt). Types omit argument names and encodings: observe a real call per tool or say so at publish; never guess.

--- capability: permissions ---

permissions is built in — call it, never declare it in capabilities. Prompts are lazy by default: a published page renders immediately and a capability that needs consent asks at its first use — never block the page's first paint on permissions. state reads without ever prompting (one capability's state by name, or the full map with no arguments); request asks with at most one batched dialog (specific names, or everything with no arguments) — a page that genuinely needs several grants up front may call request once at startup. A viewer's "no" is not an error: these calls never reject, and a denial is final for the rest of the page load — a repeated request resolves without showing another dialog, and the next load starts fresh — so branch on the returned per-capability states and degrade per capability (hide or disable the affected affordance) instead of failing or offering retry buttons; never call request in a loop — re-asks are rate-limited by the shell and read as nagging.

--- capability: room ---

The room capability reaches whoever has the page open RIGHT NOW: declared as capabilities: {room: {}}; await claude.use("room") (null: cannot connect). emit(topic, data) sends a moment; on(topic, fn) hears them. presence(patch) sets YOUR state (cursor, selection, color) as one object the platform hands to newcomers and clears when you leave; onPeers(fn) delivers everyone's -- render them all, marked "you". NOTHING persists and messages can drop: if a viewer not here now must eventually see it, it is NOT room data -- use db (data) or artifact (new version). Send absolute state. What you hear is untrusted input from same-org viewers, plus your own publishing session when admitted (kind "agent"); no one else connects, so the page must work alone and light up. Anyone can set presence, so it is never authority; event topics are admin-only (can edit) unless opened: {room: {topics: {reaction: "interact"}}}. Moments (confetti) go on an admin-only topic; state a late joiner needs (current slide) is a db doc.