Projects & Artifacts — Shared Context & Team Documents

How Projects Work

A Project is a persistent context container. Every conversation started inside a Project begins with Claude already knowing:

• The project's system prompt — standing instructions about tone, format, constraints, and role
• The project's knowledge documents — files you've uploaded that Claude references for context
• The project's artifact library — documents and outputs already created in this project

This means a team member starting their fifth conversation in the Engineering project doesn't have to re-explain what the codebase looks like, what your coding standards are, or what you were working on last week. Claude already knows — because the project told it.

What Goes in Project Context

Knowledge Documents — Giving Claude Your Context

Knowledge documents are the single most impactful thing you can add to a project. Upload a file and Claude can reference it in any conversation in that project without you pasting it in each time.

What works well as a knowledge document

• Product documentation — Claude can answer team questions about how the product works without you explaining it every time
• Style guide — upload your brand voice document and Claude applies it to all content in this project
• Codebase README or architecture overview — gives Claude enough context to give useful technical answers
• Team glossary — company-specific terms, acronyms, project codenames
• Previous decisions log — "We decided X because Y" — Claude won't suggest things you've already rejected
• Persona or role definition — "In this project, you are our senior copywriter with 10 years of B2B SaaS experience"

Supported file formats

PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD, CSV, XLSX (read as text), and code files (JS, Python, etc.). Images are supported on tiers with vision enabled. Each file is converted to text for indexing — formatting may simplify.

Keeping knowledge documents current

Knowledge documents don't auto-update. When your style guide changes or your product docs are revised, re-upload the updated file. Delete the old version to avoid Claude being confused by contradictory information. Many teams add a date to filenames: brand-guidelines-2026-04.pdf.

Artifacts — What Claude Produces

An Artifact is any substantial output Claude creates in a conversation: a document, a code file, a table, a report. Claude automatically suggests creating an Artifact when the output is long or structured — you can also request one explicitly: "Write this as an artifact so I can share it with the team."

Artifact types

Iterating on artifacts

One of the most powerful workflows: start a conversation, get an artifact, continue the conversation to refine it. Each revision creates a new version — the artifact shows a version history so you can step back if a revision made things worse. You never lose the previous draft.

# Example iteration flow:
User: "Write a product launch announcement for our new API pricing tier"
Claude: [Creates document artifact: "API Pricing Launch Announcement"]

User: "Good. Make the opening more direct — lead with the price change,
       not the background story. Also add a FAQ section at the bottom."
Claude: [Revises artifact — creates v2, retains v1 in history]

User: "The FAQ is great. Shorten the main body by 30%."
Claude: [Revises — creates v3]

Artifact Retention — The 90-Day Policy

Shared artifacts are retained for 90 days from the date of last modification (updated from the previous 30-day limit in March 2026). What this means in practice:

• Artifacts you actively work on reset their 90-day clock each time they're modified
• Artifacts that aren't touched for 90 days are marked for deletion with a 7-day warning
• You receive email notifications before artifacts expire
• Deleted artifacts cannot be recovered — export before the deadline

Extending retention

• Pin the artifact — pinned artifacts have indefinite retention on Business tier
• Export it — download as PDF, DOCX, or markdown and store externally
• Enterprise tier — configurable retention periods, including indefinite

Exporting artifacts

# From the artifact view:
→ Click the ⋮ menu on any artifact
→ Export As: PDF | DOCX | Markdown | Plain text | CSV (for data tables)

# Bulk export (Business/Enterprise):
→ Project Settings → Export → Download all artifacts as ZIP

Sharing Artifacts

Every artifact has a shareable link. The link can be set to three access levels:

Public artifact links show a "Created with Claude" attribution but do not show your workspace name, team members, or the conversation that produced the artifact.

Collaborative Editing

Multiple team members can view an artifact simultaneously. Collaborative editing (multiple people editing at once) is available on Business and Enterprise tiers. On Pro tier, edits are sequential — if two people edit at the same time, the last save wins.

To edit an artifact directly (without asking Claude to revise it):

1. Open the artifact
2. Click Edit — the artifact becomes a rich text editor
3. Make changes directly
4. Click Save — creates a new version, preserving history
5. Or click Continue in Claude — returns to the conversation with the edited version as the current draft

Organising a Project for Long-Term Use

Projects that stay useful for months follow a consistent structure. Here's a pattern that works:

• Knowledge docs: Keep 3–5 core documents. Too many and Claude's context gets diluted. If you have 20 documents, split into sub-projects.
• Pinned artifacts: Pin the current version of the most important living documents (style guide, decision log, project brief). Unpin artifacts that are no longer active.
• Naming convention: Date-prefix important artifacts — 2026-04 Q2 Campaign Brief — so the artifact library stays navigable as it grows.
• Archive sub-project: Create an "Archive" project with no system prompt and move old artifacts there rather than deleting them. Gives you a 90-day grace period after moving.
• Monthly review: Assign one team member to review the project's knowledge docs and pinned artifacts monthly and update anything stale.