A doc is the one artifact you can argue with in the margin.
Claude Docs is one of three artifact types, alongside Slides and Design, created from the Artifacts page in Claude. Anthropic describes it as a document your team reads, comments on and edits in place while Claude keeps it current. That is accurate, and it undersells the part that matters.
The one-sentence version
A doc is a document you brief by commenting on it. You do not describe which paragraph you mean in a chat box. You point at the line, ask there, and the reply arrives on that same line with the edit already made. If you have ever left a comment on a spec and had someone action it, you already know this interaction.
That is the whole reason to choose a doc over a chat reply. A chat gives you text you then have to place. A doc is already the place.
How you get to one
There is no separate app and no URL worth bookmarking. Docs live inside Claude, so you reach one of two ways: open Artifacts in the Claude sidebar and pick the Docs tile, or simply ask for something doc-shaped in any conversation and Claude opens one for you.
If you have used Claude Design before, note the banner on this page: new Slides and Design projects are created as artifacts now. The standalone app at claude.ai/design still holds your projects and design systems, but new work starts here.
What you get on opening one
- A serif Title placeholder, and one line of instruction: start typing, or ask @Claude to write
- A toolbar with tabs, tables, images and checklists
- Share, a comment count, and an open-in-new-tab control along the top
- Private by default. The card in the session panel reads Only you until you change it
A plan, a memo, a spec, a brief, notes, a review. Ask for one of those and Claude opens a doc instead of answering in chat. Ask a quick question and you get a chat reply, which is the right outcome. The shape of the request decides the shape of the answer.
You know what a doc is for
- Understand a doc as a briefable document, not a transcript
- Know which requests open one
- Know it is private until shared
Next: the interaction that makes it worth using.