/home/workdir/artifacts/index.html: How to Get Your File Out

You asked Claude to build a website, it worked for a while, and then it announced something like "I've saved your site to /home/workdir/artifacts/index.html". So you open Finder or File Explorer, search for workdir, and find nothing. The file is real, but it is not where you think it is. Here is what that path actually means, why you will never find it on your own disk, and the three ways to get your site out of there and onto a live URL.

What is /home/workdir/artifacts/index.html?

/home/workdir/artifacts/index.html is a file path inside Claude's code-execution sandbox. When Claude writes code or generates files for you, it often does so in a temporary Linux container that Anthropic runs on their servers. That container has its own filesystem, its own home directory, and its own working folder, which is where paths like /home/workdir/ or /home/user/ come from. When Claude writes a file there, it prints the path so it can refer to it later in the conversation.

The important part: that Linux container is not your Mac and not your PC. It exists only for your chat session, and it is wiped when the session ends. The path is accurate inside the sandbox and meaningless outside it. This is why searching your own disk finds nothing, and why the same path shows up for thousands of different users. Everyone's sandbox uses the same folder layout.

Variants of the path you might see

The folder turns up in a few spellings, both in Claude's replies and in what people type into a search box. They all point to the same place: Claude's sandbox, never your own disk.

• /home/workdir/artifacts/ and /home/workdir/artifacts: the artifacts folder itself, with or without the trailing slash. Same folder.
• /home/workdir/artifacts/.: the dot means "this folder", so this is the same folder again. You see this form in commands that copy or list everything inside the folder.
• home/workdir/artifacts (no leading slash): the same path with the first slash dropped, for example by a copy-paste or a search box. It still refers to the sandbox, not to a folder on your computer.
• /home/workdir/artifacts/<project>/index.html, for example /home/workdir/artifacts/portfolio/index.html: Claude gave the project its own subfolder.

A subfolder usually means a multi-file project. Next to index.html there can be stylesheets, scripts and images that the page loads, and a page downloaded on its own can then open without its styles or pictures. Either download every file and keep the folder structure intact, or let the connector from option 3 below deploy the whole folder for you.

ChatGPT has the same kind of sandbox with a different path: if it handed you a sandbox:/mnt/data/... link that says File not found, see sandbox:/mnt/data link not working.

Why you cannot open the file on your computer

The container's filesystem is not mounted anywhere on your machine. There is no network share, no synced folder, no hidden directory where /home/workdir/ secretly lives. Your browser is talking to claude.ai over HTTPS; the sandbox sits behind Anthropic's infrastructure and never touches your local disk.

So the fix is never "find the file". The fix is always "export the content". The HTML that Claude wrote exists in two recoverable forms: as the artifact shown in your chat, and as text Claude can print or re-send. As long as your conversation is still open, nothing is lost. You just need to move the content across the boundary, from Claude's sandbox to somewhere you control.

Three ways to get the file out of Claude's sandbox

1. Download the artifact from the chat UI. If Claude presented the site as an artifact (the preview panel on the right), open that panel and use the download control to save the file to your computer. This gives you a real local index.html you can open, edit, or upload anywhere. It is the simplest path when the whole site is one file.

2. Copy the code view. Every artifact has a code view alongside the preview. Switch to it, copy everything, paste it into a text editor, and save it as index.html. This also works when Claude only printed the code in the chat without creating an artifact. It is manual, but it always works, and for a single-page site it takes under a minute. If the goal is a live link rather than a local copy, you can skip the editor: in a new VibeDeploy site, choose Paste code, paste what you copied, and it goes online as index.html.

3. Skip the file and let Claude deploy it with a connector. This is the option most people do not know exists. Give Claude a deploy tool and it publishes the site straight from its sandbox:

• In claude.ai, open Customize > Connectors, click + Add and choose Add custom connector. Name it VibeDeploy and paste https://mcp.vibedeploy.be/mcp as the server URL, or open the form with both fields filled in.
• If Claude asks for an OAuth client, choose Register automatically. Connect and sign in with your VibeDeploy account (or start the 14-day trial, no card), then allow access.
• Back in the chat that holds your site, say "deploy this as my-site".

Claude sends the files to VibeDeploy and replies with a live HTTPS address such as https://my-site.vibedeploy.be. No download, no drag-and-drop, no worrying about where /home/workdir/ is. Claude's help center says the Free plan includes one custom connector. The full connector setup also covers Claude Desktop, the mobile app and the usual snags, and the VibeDeploy MCP server page has the setup for Claude Code and other AI tools.

If your goal is a link you can send to someone, option 3 gets you there fastest. Options 1 and 2 get you a local copy first, which is useful if you want to inspect or edit the code yourself.

How to run a Claude artifact locally

Once you have saved the file to your machine, a plain HTML artifact needs nothing special. Double-click index.html and it opens in your browser. Styles and scripts that live inside the same file work immediately.

Some artifacts are not plain HTML, though. If Claude built a React component as a .tsx file with import statements at the top, your browser cannot run that directly. It needs a build step: create a small Vite project (or ask Claude to scaffold one), drop the component in, run npm install and npm run build, and preview the generated dist/ folder. If that sounds like more than you signed up for, ask Claude to "rebuild this as a single self-contained HTML file" instead. It usually can.

Either way, remember what a local copy is: a site visible only to you. Opening index.html on your laptop does not put anything on the internet. For that, you need hosting.

What "Publish artifact" in Claude does (and does not do)

Claude has a built-in Publish or Share button that gives your artifact a claude.ai link. Anthropic's help center says everyone who opens a shared artifact needs a Claude account, even with the link. The only exception it names is a legacy artifact published from a chat, and legacy artifacts are the ones made in a chat before 16 September 2026, so an artifact you make in a chat today falls under the account rule. For showing a prototype to someone who already uses Claude, that link is often all you need.

Know its limits before you treat it as hosting, though. The published page lives on Anthropic's domain with a visible Created-with-Claude frame, you cannot attach a custom domain, you cannot control the page title, meta tags, or social preview, there are no analytics, and Anthropic can unpublish content on its platform at any time. It is a sharing feature, not a home for a business site, a portfolio, or anything you would print on a business card. If the button fails, or you want to take a published page down again, see why a Claude artifact won't publish or share. Claude Code asking "Uploads the file below from this task to claude.ai" before it publishes? That prompt is explained in Claude's Publish artifact prompt.

What is MCP in Claude artifacts?

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. In plain language, it is a standard way to give Claude extra abilities by connecting it to outside services. A connected service exposes tools, and Claude can call those tools during your conversation the same way it runs code.

For deployment, the flow looks like this: you connect a hosting provider's MCP server once, and from then on Claude has a "deploy" tool. When you say "put this site online", Claude calls that tool, uploads the files it just generated, and reads back the resulting live URL, all inside the chat. You never handle the files at all. We explain the concept in depth in What is MCP hosting.

From sandbox path to a live URL on your own domain

Here is the whole journey, condensed:

1. Get the site out of the sandbox: download the artifact, copy the code, or add the VibeDeploy connector and tell Claude "deploy this".
2. If you exported manually, drag your index.html (or built folder) into a new site on VibeDeploy, or paste the copied code with Paste code. You get a live https://yourname.vibedeploy.be address in about 30 seconds.
3. Add your own domain in the dashboard, set the DNS records it shows you and click Verify. SSL is issued automatically, usually within a minute.
4. Keep iterating in Claude: with the connector added, every "update the site" request can end with a fresh deploy to the same URL. Every deploy is kept as a version, so an earlier one can be restored in one click from the dashboard, within your plan's restore window.

The step-by-step version, including the custom domain part, is in Claude artifact to custom domain. The 14-day trial needs no credit card, so you can take today's sandbox file all the way to a real domain for free. Details on the pricing page.

/home/workdir/artifacts/index.html is not lost. It was just never on your computer to begin with. Export it, or better, have Claude deploy it, and the path stops mattering entirely.

Sources

• Anthropic Help Center, Getting started with custom connectors using remote MCP: the Customize > Connectors steps and "Free users are limited to one custom connector". Checked 13 October 2026.
• Anthropic Help Center, Share artifacts: "Everyone needs a Claude account. People without one can't open a shared artifact, even with the link. The only exception is a legacy artifact published from a chat." Checked 13 October 2026.
• Anthropic Help Center, What are artifacts and how do I use them?: "Legacy artifacts are artifacts made in a chat before September 16, 2026", and you can't make new ones. Checked 13 October 2026.