Files and links in replies

Claude names files as it works: weapons.md is written, see docs/specs/weapons.md, Player.cpp:42. Click one and Claudette opens it.

Web links

A click on a web link in a reply, a plan, or a subagent’s prompt or report opens it in your browser. Only https, http and mailto links open this way, so a reply can’t start a program through an app’s own address scheme. A link to an image on the web opens in Claudette’s image window instead (Images).

Files and folders

These mentions are clickable:

A Markdown link whose address is a path, relative to the tab’s folder or not, or a file: address on this computer. A line or heading in it (#L42, #guns) is left out.
Inline code that names a file or folder: a path (docs/specs/weapons.md, src/utils/, ~/.claude/settings.json, C:\Work\Game\Config\DefaultGame.ini) or a name with an extension (weapons.md, .gitignore), with or without a line (Player.cpp:42, :42:7, :42-51, #L42-L51).

Inline code becomes a link only once its file is found, so code that only looks like a name (System.IO.Path) stays code, and code that can’t be a file (Foo.Bar(), git add weapons.md) isn’t looked for. A found one keeps the code’s look, underlined, with the hand pointer.

Where the file is

A path is read from the tab’s folder (the worktree, for a tab in one), then its extra folders. A path that starts from an environment variable is read with yours, written the way any shell writes it: %TEMP%\shot.png, $env:TEMP\shot.png, $TMPDIR/shot.png or ${TMPDIR}/shot.png. On Windows, Claude runs its commands in Git Bash, so it can name files the way Git Bash does: /c/Work/Game/Config.ini is C:\Work\Game\Config.ini, and /tmp/shot.png is in your temporary folder. A name, or a path that isn’t there from the folder (specs/weapons.md), is the file with that name that Claude’s tools last read or changed, a subagent’s too. Failing that, it is a file in the project with that name, the shallowest first.

What a click does

A file opens in the app your OS uses for it. With Project files, it opens in Claudette’s own editor instead, at the line named. Settings → Files and diffs → Open files in chooses: Claudette’s editor, at the line named or The app the OS uses for the file. The OS’s apps have no common way to take a line, so none is passed to them. (Opening files from the conversation has which tab it opens in.)
An image (a PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP or BMP) opens in Claudette’s image window, unless Settings → Files and diffs → Open images in says to use your OS’s app (Images).
A folder opens in Finder, Explorer or your file manager.
A program, script, shortcut or installer (.exe, .bat, .ps1, .js, .sh, .py, .lnk, .app, .desktop and the like, or on macOS and Linux a file with no extension whose execute bit is set) is shown in its folder instead of opening, since opening one would run it, and a reply can be misled into pointing at one under an innocent name. Scripts open as text in Claudette’s editor, where nothing runs.
A name that matches several files offers them in a menu at the click, with their folders (docs/weapons.md, Plugins/Combat/weapons.md). Pick one to open it; close the menu to open none.
A link to a file that isn’t there adds a note: Couldn’t find docs/specs/shots.md.

What Claudette looks at

Inline code is looked for as the reply shows, before you click, and some paths reach the network just by being looked up (/net/<host> on macOS). So that lookup touches only the tab’s folders, your home folder and, on Windows, the computer’s own drives, not a mapped network drive. A file elsewhere becomes a link only when Claude’s tools named it. A click looks wherever its path points. A network path (\\server\share\…, //server/…, file://server/…) is never looked at, since Windows would hand its server your credentials.

Settings

Where a clicked file opens is set in Settings → Files and diffs: Open files in, and Show a file clicked in a conversation (Beside the conversation or In its place). Opening files from the conversation explains both.