What Does 'Publish Artifact' Mean in Claude?

When you create an HTML artifact in Claude, you'll see a Publish button (sometimes shown as a share icon) in the artifact panel. Here's exactly what it does — and what it doesn't do.

What "Publish Artifact" does

Clicking Publish generates a URL that points to your artifact hosted on claude.ai. The URL is real and permanent (until you unpublish). You can copy it and send it to anyone.

The catch: viewers need a Claude account

Here's what most people don't realize until they share the link: when someone clicks a published Claude artifact URL, they land on claude.ai — which requires authentication. If they're not logged in to Claude, they see a login screen, not your artifact.

This means:

• People without a Claude account can't see it
• People with only a free Claude account may be blocked (depending on their plan)
• Anyone on a device where they're not logged in to Claude won't see it

It's not a bug — it's just how Claude's product is built. Artifacts are hosted inside the Claude product boundary.

What "private" vs "published" means in Claude

By default, your artifacts are private — only you can see them. When you publish, you're making the artifact accessible via a URL. But "accessible" still means "accessible to Claude users" — it's not public to the entire internet the way a normal website is.

How to make an artifact truly public

If you want anyone to view your artifact — no Claude account, no login — you need to host the HTML outside of claude.ai.

ShareDuo is designed for exactly this use case. You upload the artifact's HTML (download it from Claude or ask Claude to output the code), and ShareDuo gives you a genuinely public URL that works in any browser.

When to use each

• Claude Publish: sharing within a team that all uses Claude; keeping artifact linked to the conversation
• ShareDuo: sharing with clients, friends, or anyone outside Claude; embedding in emails, Notion, Slack; making something permanently public