Anthropic just launched a major update for Claude Code in the desktop app that completely changes the development experience. The full cycle — writing code, previewing the app, reviewing changes, and merging the PR — now lives in a single place.
Real-time app preview
This is the most striking feature of the update and the one that most resembles tools like Bolt or Lovable. Claude Code can now spin up a development server and display your app running directly within the desktop app in an embedded browser.
What Claude does autonomously:
- Takes screenshots of the UI to verify its own changes
- Inspects the DOM and reads console logs
- Clicks elements, fills out forms, and detects errors
- Iterates and fixes what it finds without you having to describe what it’s seeing
And the best part: you can interact too. You can select visual elements directly in the preview and give Claude feedback to adjust. It applies to both frontend and backend — Claude can test API endpoints and see server logs.
Integrated Diff view
After each edit, an indicator appears showing added/deleted lines (e.g., +12 -1). Clicking it opens the diff viewer with files on the left and changes on the right. You can comment line by line and Claude incorporates your observations before opening the PR.
Automatic code review
One click on “Review code” and Claude examines your local diffs, leaving comments directly in the view — bugs, suggestions, potential issues — like a colleague reviewing your code before it leaves your machine.
Pull request monitoring in the background
Once the PR is opened on GitHub, Claude takes care of the rest:
- Auto-fix: automatically fixes failing CI checks
- Auto-merge: merges the PR when all checks pass
- Desktop notification when CI finishes
Open the PR and move on to another task. Claude finishes the work.
Synced sessions everywhere
Sessions resume seamlessly across CLI, desktop, web, and mobile without losing context.
Note: PR monitoring requires GitHub CLI (
gh) installed and authenticated.
If you previously needed to jump between the terminal, browser, and GitHub to complete a development cycle, with this update all of that converges in Claude Code Desktop. Direct competition to Bolt, Lovable, and similar tools — but with the power of an agent that understands your entire codebase.
Have you tried it yet? 