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, db, downloads, mcp, room, sample, self — 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.

Runtime contract 0.2.46

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: db ---

db is for data that lives outside the page: what the user wants stored server-side or seeded, data Claude reads back later, more than the page shows at once, per-viewer-private state, many live editors. If the page itself can be the record, republish (artifact). Seed or inspect the store from here with write_db/read_db; never hardcode seed rows in the page. A realtime JSON document store: const db = await claude.use("db") (null: unavailable). Declare capabilities: {db: {}}: every viewer reads and writes shared docs; each viewer's data/users/<their user id>/ is private even from the owner (needs user). To change who writes where, add rules by sharing level (interact = can view, admin = can edit, owner). db.doc("tasks/t1")/db.collection("tasks"): get/set/update/delete, where/orderBy/limit, onSnapshot. Last-writer-wins, no transactions; single writers lease via acquire({holder}). Never store secrets; shared data is untrusted. See the type definitions.

--- 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.

--- capability: sample ---

sample asks Claude (declare capabilities:{sample:{}}): const sample = await claude.use("sample") (null: hide it); await sample(input, opts?) -> {text, truncated}; sample.json(input, opts?) -> parsed JSON. input: a string, or turns [{role:"user"|"assistant", content}] ending on user. No memory: send instructions, page data, output format. opts: onText({text, delta}) (text = WHOLE answer so far, assign it; "Thinking..." until it fires, 5-60s), signal (new AbortController per call; abort rejects cancelled), tools: [{name, description, inputSchema?, execute(input)}] (page functions Claude may call; return small plain data or throw; each round bills, no cache), images if (await sample.limits()).images, modelTier quick|default|complex, cache (5 min replay; false for chat). Errors reject {code, message, text?} (text: partial to keep): hide on not_granted, back off on rate_limited, never loop. Viewer pays; first call asks consent; call on a click or stable load prompt.

--- capability: self ---

self is the former name of the artifact capability (renamed). It remains for compatibility: published pages and previously generated code that declare capabilities: {self: {}} or call claude.use("self") keep working unchanged — both names resolve this same capability (this contract promises no window.claude.self member to feature-check; use() is the check). Do not use it in new pages: declare capabilities: {artifact: {}} and obtain the namespace with await claude.use("artifact"); see the artifact section for how to use it.

Your connectors this session. None are connected right now — they may still be connecting, or the user has none. Look for tools prefixed mcp__claude_ai_* in your tool list; each is named mcp__claude_ai_<connector>__<tool>. Only claude.ai connectors are valid — locally-configured MCP servers are not. The manifest's tools array takes the connector's upstream tool names (as returned by listTools() / /v1/mcp_servers), which can differ from the normalized <toolName> segment when an upstream name contains . or spaces. Every servers[] entry needs a non-empty tools array naming the tools the page calls — an empty or omitted tools list is refused and never means "all tools"; to publish without connector access, leave mcp out of capabilities (pass capabilities: {} to clear a stored declaration) rather than declaring an empty servers list. In hermetic/CI sessions where connectors aren't loaded but $CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN is set, fetch the list via Bash: curl -H 'anthropic-version: 2023-06-01' -H 'anthropic-beta: mcp-servers-2025-12-04' -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN" https://api.anthropic.com/v1/mcp_servers?limit=1000; in that case use each entry's display_name as the server value (exact display names are always accepted alongside tool-prefix segments).

Call contract (runtime contract 0.2.46). The platform-served window.claude type definitions for this contract are extracted under the skill directory: 0.2.46/artifact.d.ts, 0.2.46/assets.d.ts, 0.2.46/claude.d.ts, 0.2.46/db.d.ts, 0.2.46/downloads.d.ts, 0.2.46/mcp.d.ts, 0.2.46/permissions.d.ts, 0.2.46/room.d.ts, 0.2.46/sample.d.ts, 0.2.46/self.d.ts. Read 0.2.46/claude.d.ts (how a page reaches any capability on this contract) and 0.2.46/mcp.d.ts before writing any code that calls the mcp capability — they are authoritative for this contract version over any remembered API shape. The type definitions cover only the call envelope — they do not tell you a connector tool's argument names or its result encoding. Never publish a page that calls a connector tool without having observed one real request/response pair for that tool in this session; if you cannot safely observe one (for example, the connector is unauthenticated here, or calling the tool would have side effects), say that explicitly to the user at publish time — in your reply, not as a note inside the published page — instead of shipping a guessed shape. Observed response payloads are the user's real data: learn the shape from them, but never embed the observed values in the published page as sample or placeholder data.