I've spent the last decade building things — from supply chain platforms at Squarespace to Odeko, where we're helping independent cafes manage their inventory and margins. But over the past few weeks, I've shipped something that feels fundamentally different.
It's called SimSense. And the insight behind it is dead simple: Claude artifacts are temporary, but they don't have to be.
The Problem I Kept Running Into
Last fall, I started using Claude heavily to prototype. I'd ask it to build an interactive dashboard, a voting interface, a real-time tracker — and Claude would generate perfect, working HTML/JavaScript right there in the chat. Amazing. Then I'd close the browser tab.
Gone.
What if I wanted to share that dashboard with my team? Paste it into a Slack thread? Put it on a TV in the office? Display it on a kiosk at the cafe? The artifact would live exactly nowhere — except inside a single chat window.
I started thinking: what if Claude's output had a permanent address? What if you could take something Claude built and say "here's a URL, put it anywhere"?
That simple question turned into a 10-day sprint with a tiny team. And it turned into something real.
What Is a Sim?
A sim is what happens when a Claude artifact gets a permanent address, state memory, and a physical presence.
You open a URL on any device — your laptop, someone else's iPad, a TV in your lobby, a kiosk at the farmer's market. Claude shows up there. Right now. Doing something.
That's it. That's the core insight.
The sims we've shipped range from ambient art installations that run forever (thousands of particles flowing across a screen, never repeating) to interactive dashboards with persistent data (polls, shoutouts, job boards, layoff trackers). Some are personal. Some are community projects. Some are for real businesses.
You don't host them. You don't manage infrastructure. Claude generates the HTML. We deploy it. You share the URL.
Built in 10 Days, With Claude as a Genuine Partner
Here's what I want to be honest about: this product exists because of how collaboratively we built it with Claude itself.
It wasn't "we used Claude to code things faster." It was more like: Claude was in the room for the architectural decisions. The naming came from a conversation with Claude about Neuromancer and SenseNet. The design direction evolved through real back-and-forth. The discovery system, the state memory implementation, the device management — Claude was genuinely involved in thinking through the problems.
I've shipped plenty of startups fast. This was different. Faster. And weirdly more thoughtful, because we had a second brain in the conversation pushing on architecture while we slept.
The Sims That Exist Right Now
Let me show you what's possible. These are real sims, built by real people, live on the internet right now:
Ambient & Creative
Continuum — Generative Flow Art
https://sim-idle-span-8820.my.simsense.ai
Open this on a second monitor or TV and watch it run. Thousands of particles, flowing, never repeating. Algorithmic painting that evolves in real time.
Monet Gallery
https://sim-slate-burn-5704.my.simsense.ai
A museum-style rotating gallery of Monet paintings. Soft crossfades. The kind of ambient beauty you'd run on an office screen all day.
State Memory & Interactivity
Team Shoutout Board
https://sim-ghost-sun-2716.my.simsense.ai
Click this, submit a shoutout. Refresh. It's still there. Close the browser. Come back tomorrow. Your shoutout remains. Because sims have state memory. No database signup. No login. Just a URL.
Community Dashboards
F1 Fantasy League Dashboard
https://sim-burnt-creek-9664.my.simsense.ai
Live F1 standings. Community voting. Real-time updates. Built by someone in the F1 fandom who wanted a cleaner interface than what existed.
AI Layoff Tracker
https://sim-cold-shell-9435.my.simsense.ai
A community-powered database of companies reducing workforce due to AI. Anyone can add entries. The data persists.
Manchester Center VT — Who's Hiring?
https://sim-liminal-feed-3116.my.simsense.ai
A job board for our town. Built by someone who wanted to help local hiring happen in one place.
Real Business Use
Colburn Cafe Mobile Guide
https://sim-crisp-sun-4043.my.simsense.ai
A real Vermont cafe put their menu, hours, WiFi password, and local event calendar on a sim. Customers can access it from anywhere, share it easily, and the cafe can update it by asking Claude to modify the sim.
Odeko Profitability Tracker
https://sim-chrome-relay-2595.my.simsense.ai
Our company uses one internally — SG&A savings tracker that persists across the team. Everyone can see progress toward our margin goals. No spreadsheet. No dashboard subscription. Just a URL.
The Moment State Memory Changed Everything
For the first few days, sims were beautiful but static. Then we added state memory. Suddenly sims weren't just displays anymore. They were applications. Real applications with persistent data.
We used a simple key-value API so Claude could read and write state directly from the generated code:
// Claude-generated code can now do this
const shoutouts = await SimSense.get('shoutouts', 'list');
await SimSense.set('shoutouts', 'list', [...shoutouts, newEntry]);
// Or increment a counter
const result = await SimSense.increment('votes', 'option-a');
console.log(result.value); // The new count
That's when I realized: we'd accidentally built something that feels less like "Claude's outputs" and more like "Claude is building actual applications."
How It Works
For Claude Pro, Max, or Team users, there's an MCP connector. Connect it in your Claude settings once, and then in any conversation:
- Ask Claude to build a sim
- Claude generates the HTML
- It deploys automatically
- You get a permanent URL
- Share it anywhere
You can update it, redesign it, add state, add persistence — all by talking to Claude. "Make the background darker." "Add a form to collect emails." "Include a leaderboard that tracks entries over time."
What We Learned About Building With AI as a Partner
First: The architecture questions matter more than the implementation. Claude is great at implementation. But the real value came from genuine conversations about how state should work, how devices should be managed, how the discovery directory should surface interesting sims.
Second: Naming matters more than I thought. We spent time with Claude exploring what this actually is. Not a "dashboard builder." A sim. A living, interactive thing. That naming cascaded into every design decision.
Third: Your collaborators will push you. Having Claude in the conversation meant someone was always asking "what about this edge case?" or "could we make this simpler?"
The Invitation
Is it free? Yes. During beta, completely free.
Where do I start? Go to simsense.ai. If you're a Claude Pro, Max, or Team user, connect the MCP in Claude settings. Then ask Claude to build you a sim.
Can I put this on real hardware? Yes. Open the URL on any screen — desktop monitor, iPad, TV, Raspberry Pi. It just works.
Build a sim. Share the URL. Tell me what you made. I'm genuinely curious — send the link, describe what it does, and if you put it on real hardware, send a photo.
I'm @daneatkinson on X, or find us on Discord at simsense.ai.
Tags: ai, claude, mcp, webdev, buildinpublic
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