[BUG] Cowork Live Artifacts hardcode ~/Documents/Claude/Artifacts as mount path, ignoring user-configured folder and breaking macOS privacy controls

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Apr 23, 2026 by ralphvaldes Closed Apr 23, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
  • [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Cowork Live Artifacts hardcode ~/Documents/Claude/Artifacts as mount path, ignoring user-configured folder and breaking macOS privacy controls

Problem Statement

Cowork Live Artifacts always attempt to mount to ~/Documents/Claude/Artifacts/<artifact-name>, regardless of which folder the user has connected in the Cowork session. This causes two compounding issues:

  1. The mount path is hardcoded and cannot be changed via any setting or config file
  2. On macOS, virtiofs cannot stat ~/Documents without explicit "Documents Folder" privacy permission granted to Claude — an all-or-nothing permission that grants access to the entire Documents folder

Users who store their Claude working directory outside of ~/Documents (e.g., ~/Claude/) have no way to use Live Artifacts without granting broader filesystem access than they are comfortable with.

Workarounds Attempted

  • Deleting and recreating the Live Artifact: does not resolve, same path is used
  • Creating a symlink from ~/Documents/Claude/Artifacts to ~/Claude/Artifacts: virtiofs fails with "operation not permitted" before it can follow the symlink
  • Searching config files (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, ~/.claude/): no stored path reference found, confirming the path is hardcoded in the app or stored server-side

Suggested Fix

Mount the Live Artifact folder relative to the user-connected Cowork session folder, not a hardcoded ~/Documents path. This is consistent with how the Code tab already handles folder selection.

Related issues: #27697, #47179

Environment

  • OS: macOS
  • Claude Desktop version: latest (April 2026)
  • Feature: Cowork Live Artifacts

What Should Happen?

Cowork should mount the Live Artifact folder relative to the folder the user connected in the session, not a hardcoded path under ~/Documents.

Error Messages/Logs

RPC error: failed to mount /mnt/.virtiofs-root/shared/Users/<username>/Documents/Claude/Artifacts/<artifact-name> as .artifacts/<artifact-name>: source path is not accessible: stat /mnt/.virtiofs-root/shared/Users/<username>/Documents/Claude/Artifacts/<artifact-name>: operation not permitted

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Set up Claude working folder at ~/Claude/Artifacts (outside ~/Documents)
  2. Open Cowork and connect ~/Claude/Artifacts as the session folder
  3. Create or open a Live Artifact
  4. Observe that Cowork ignores the connected folder and attempts to mount ~/Documents/Claude/Artifacts/<artifact-name> instead

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude for Mac 1.3883.0 | 2.1.118 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_

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