CHECK 01 8 MIN · DIAGRAMMED

What changed in the Claude Code desktop

What you’ll know by the end of this check

  • The five features the redesigned desktop app gained
  • Why each one matters even if you live in the terminal
  • Which one is the biggest shift in your day-to-day workflow

The shortest possible answer

Anthropic rebuilt the Claude Code desktop app around five moves:

  1. Integrated terminals — a real shell, inside the Claude Code window
  2. File editing — edit files in the app, not bounced out to VS Code
  3. HTML / PDF preview — render artifacts in place
  4. Multi-session — work on more than one thing at a time
  5. Drag-and-drop — files, images, URLs, into the conversation

Each one is worth a check. But the meta-story is: the desktop stopped being a chat window with code on the side. It became a workspace.

Why this matters if you live in the terminal

Terminal still ships features first. Nothing in the desktop redesign closes that gap. But the desktop redesign closes a different gap: the desktop was the worst experience for long-form agent work, and now it might be the best.

If you’ve ever wanted to:

  • Run a test suite in one tab while Claude edits files in another
  • Preview an HTML artifact without opening another window
  • Park a half-finished session and start something new without losing context
  • Grab a screenshot from your desktop and throw it into the chat without uploading

You want the new desktop.

The actual shift (in one sentence)

Before: Claude Code desktop was where you went for background tasks and cloud sessions. After: Claude Code desktop is where you can stay for an entire workday without opening another app.

Which feature matters most — a quick rank

Depends on what you do, but for most PM-adjacent-eng work:

  1. Multi-session — unlocks parallel workflows, easily the biggest shift
  2. Integrated terminals — removes the constant context-switch to iTerm
  3. HTML / PDF preview — the artifact-first future is actually here
  4. Drag-and-drop — small but saves real friction
  5. File editing — nice, but most of you still Cmd-Tab to VS Code

Checks 02–06 walk each one. Read the ones that match your work first.

The canonical version

This dispatch is a working summary. Verify specific behavior against Anthropic’s official release notes and product documentation before building workflows around any single feature.

Ready to verify this check?

You can name all five additions. You know which matters most for your workflow. You’ve decided which checks to read first. Mark it cleared.