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What an artifact is

An artifact is something Allternit makes that you’d show someone: a doc, a deck, a sheet, a design, a dashboard, a motion piece, a web page, an interactive card, a diagram, an image or a code file. Each one is saved to your Allternit account, so it’s the same artifact on Allternit Desktop, ai.allternit.com, the phone layout and the m.allternit.com app. Every artifact has a kind, a title, and versions. Each save is a new version; nothing you saved is overwritten. Artifacts are private until you share them.

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Starting an artifact

There are four ways in:
  1. Ask in any chat. “Write a launch brief”, “make a deck from these notes”, “draw the signup flow”. Allternit makes an artifact on its own when the result is long (about 15 lines or more), stands on its own, or is something you’ll edit or reuse. Short answers stay in the chat. You can always say “make this an artifact”.
  2. Pick an Output in the message box. Click Output under the message box and choose Artifact (Allternit picks the format), Docs, Slides, Sheets, Design, Dashboards or Motion. The choice applies to your next message, then clears. Click the × on the chip to clear it yourself.
  3. Type a slash command. /docs, /slides, /sheets, /design, /dashboard and /motion pick that Output. You can type the request straight after it: /slides a 6-slide pitch for the Q4 launch.
  4. Make something new on the Artifacts tab (see below).
  5. The + next to Artifacts in the sidebar lists every kind you can make, grouped as Office (Docs, Sheets, Slides), Create (Dashboards, Motion, Design, Page, Build) and Generate (Deep Research, Image, Video). Kinds your org admin turned off don’t appear.
Each kind has its own Allternit icon (a cream tile with its block letter and a coloured page), used the same way in the Output menu, the sidebar, the Artifacts tab, chat cards and the artifact window. Every Output (Docs, Slides, Sheets, Design, Dashboards and Motion) is on every plan, including Free. Organization admins can turn templates off for everyone in the org. A turned off template doesn’t appear in the Output menu. See For organization admins. Dashboards are live: each tile reads your connected apps and warehouses as you. See Dashboards. Interactive cards (the live answers with sliders, tables and buttons) stay in the chat. To keep one, hover it and choose Open as artifact.

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The artifact window

An artifact opens in its own window beside the chat. On a phone it opens full screen.
  • Title. Click it to rename (if you can edit).
  • Versions. Editors can open any earlier version from the clock menu. “Back to latest” returns to the current one.
  • Share (the dark button at the top right) opens the sharing settings (below). The settings open on top of the artifact window.
  • Copy copies the artifact’s content (an image copies its link). The arrow next to it opens the Download menu.
  • Turn into motion. On a doc or a dashboard, the Download menu also has Turn into motion, which asks Allternit for a short animation of it. See Motion.
  • Download lists the files this kind can save, each with its file type. Every artifact has Source file. Docs export to Word, PDF and Markdown; Slides to PowerPoint and PDF; Sheets to Excel and CSV; Design to HTML, .zip, PowerPoint and PDF. Diagrams also export PNG and SVG; pages export an HTML file (and, on Allternit Desktop with HyperFrames, an MP4 video); dashboards export a PNG image and a PDF through the print window; motion exports an MP4 video on every surface, in the cloud where the browser can’t encode it (see Motion).
  • Fix with Gizzi. When a diagram, a motion piece or a dashboard tile fails to render, the error has a Fix with Gizzi button. It sends the error to your open conversation, which reads the artifact and saves a fixed version.
  • Ask Gizzi about your artifacts anywhere. In the terminal, a bot or a channel, Gizzi can find your artifacts by name, read and change them, post comments, and (after you approve) change sharing or delete one.
  • Comments and the avatars of anyone else who has it open appear for Docs, Slides, Sheets and Design. See Comments, presence and versions.
  • Docs, Slides, Sheets and Design are edited right in the window and save on their own; see Docs, Slides, Sheets and Design artifacts.
  • On Desktop and the web, drag the window’s left edge to resize it, or use the full-width button to give it the whole view. Press the × to close it.
Web pages run in a sandbox: they can’t read your Allternit data, cookies or other artifacts. A page can still save its own data, ask AI and use your connected apps if you approve it; see Pages that act like apps. If someone else saves a newer version while you’re editing a text artifact, Allternit merges your change onto theirs. When it can’t (for example, both of you changed the same lines), the window asks whether to keep yours or use theirs.

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Sharing

Only the owner can change sharing. Open an artifact and click Share. Who can open it
  • Only you — the default.
  • Specific people — add people by email.
  • Your org — everyone in your organization can view it.
  • Anyone with the link — no sign-in needed; view only.
What they can do
  • Can view — open it and read comments.
  • Commenter — also comment.
  • Can edit — also change it and save new versions.
Docs have Can view and Can edit only, and are shared with your org (or a link, if your admin allows external sharing), not by email. Which version they see. With Always share latest version on, viewers see each new version. Turn it off to keep showing the version you shared while you keep editing. When link sharing is off. “Anyone with the link” is unavailable when:
  • the artifact uses AI or connectors while someone views it, or
  • your organization has external sharing turned off.
The Share window says which one applies. People outside your organization. Invites by email to people outside your org work only if your org allows outside invites (personal accounts always can), up to 50 people per artifact. An outside invite expires after 30 days if it isn’t accepted. On phones, sharing is read-only: you can see who has access and copy the link; change it from Desktop or the web. Copy link copies a link to the artifact. People you shared it with open it in Allternit; with “Anyone with the link”, anyone can open it.

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The Artifacts tab

The toolbar stays on one row. Scroll its controls sideways when the window is narrow or on a phone. The title uses the app’s UI font; selected layout controls use neutral frosted glass in light and dark themes. Artifacts in the sidebar (or the Artifacts section on the phone) lists everything you own and everything shared with you, newest first.
  • Search by title.
  • Filter by kind, and by owner: Everything, Mine, Shared with me.
  • Switch between grid and list.
  • Labels show where an artifact came from: Cowork, Code, Bot, or Legacy (see below). Shared items show the owner’s avatar.
  • Previews: each card shows the artifact itself: the image, the first page of a doc, the top rows of a sheet, the first slide, a snapshot of a design, page or card, the diagram, or the first frame of a motion piece. Previews load as you scroll. A snapshot never runs scripts. If a preview can’t be drawn, the card shows the artifact’s thumbnail or its kind illustration.
  • The ⋯ menu on your own artifacts has Delete. Deleting is permanent: there’s no trash, and people you shared it with lose access.

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Make something new

The row of animated tiles above your artifacts is the template gallery. Hover a tile to see what it makes and replay how it’s built.
  • Docs, Sheets, Slides, Dashboards, Motion, Design, Page: opens a new chat with that Output picked. Describe what you want and send. A tile for a template your plan doesn’t include shows a lock and the plan that unlocks it. Templates your organization turned off aren’t shown.
  • Research, Build, Image, Video: opens a session for that type.
On a phone, the tiles slide sideways.

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Start from your connected tools

Below the tiles, chips start a chat from the tools you’ve connected: What needs my attention checks all of them, and Catch me up on a tool summarizes that one. With nothing connected, Connect your tools opens the connector settings.

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Design and Office

Design in the header opens Allternit Design and your design systems (start a new one, open one, or browse the marketplace). Office opens Allternit Office in its own window. If you’re signed out, the tab asks you to sign in; offline, it says so and shows your artifacts again when you reconnect.

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Older artifacts (Legacy)

Artifacts you made before this update — Office docs, sheets and decks, Design projects, saved chat artifacts, canvas outputs and Cowork’s local artifacts — are copied into your account automatically the first time you sign in on each device. They show the Legacy label. Nothing is deleted: the originals stay where they were. Legacy artifacts open, can be shared and exported, and keep working as they did. Office docs and Design projects have Open in editor to edit them in their original editor. The copy runs in the background and never blocks the app. If a device is offline, or Allternit Desktop isn’t running when you sign in on the web, the rest is copied the next time the app starts.

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For organization admins

Open Settings → Organization → Artifacts (Desktop and web; on a phone the section only says to manage this on desktop or web). Admins can change it; other members see the same values read-only.
  • Artifacts. The master switch. Off, members can’t create artifacts and the organization’s public links close.
  • Sharing outside the organization. Allows “Anyone with the link”. Docs can only be shared by link when this is on.
  • Invite people outside the organization. Allows email invites to people who aren’t members. Each invite expires after 30 days until accepted.
  • Show who’s viewing. Presence on open artifacts.
  • Pages can use connected apps. The connector kill switch. Off, no page in the organization can call a connected app, even one a viewer approved.
  • Templates. One switch each for Docs, Slides, Sheets, Design, Dashboards, Motion and Page. Every template is on until an admin turns it off. A turned off template disappears from the Output menu and the gallery.
  • Shared outside. Every artifact from the organization that can be opened by link or by invited email addresses, with its owner. Allow outside lets that one artifact be shared by link even when sharing outside is off (not for Docs); Remove exception takes it back.
Pages that use AI or connected apps are never available to people outside the organization, and can’t be shared with a public link, whatever these switches say. See Pages that act like apps.

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For developers

  • Client code: allternit-ai/src/lib/artifacts/ — kinds.ts (kind registry), api.ts (/api/v2/artifacts client), store.ts (useArtifacts), legacy-import.ts, share-rules.ts, plans.ts, output-choice.ts.
  • The one window: src/components/artifacts/ArtifactWindow.tsx; hosts in ArtifactWindowHost.tsx (overlay/sheet at the app roots, docked in ChatView) and ArtifactPaneWindow.tsx (Cowork and project panes).
  • Model contract: the turn carries output: {kind} when an Output is picked, and the system prompt carries the artifacts manual (ARTIFACTS_MANUAL), the motion body manual when Motion is on for the user, plus one line for the picked Output. The model creates artifacts with artifact_create / artifact_update; the transcript renders each call as a card and saves persisted:false results under the same id.
  • API, schema and sharing rules: allternit/docs/design/artifacts-v2.md.