Anthropic Computer Use
https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/computer-use
Anthropic's API-surface capability that lets Claude control a virtual desktop — see screenshots, type, click. Launched 2024-10 as a public beta. Not a finished IDE itself; it's the substrate that other harnesses (and Anthropic's own Claude apps) use to operate a computer.
At a glance
- Type
- Claude desktop-control capability (Anthropic API)
- Tier
- T1
- Section
- Agent IDEs & coding harnesses
- Created
- 2024-10
- Latest release
- not applicable — not OSS
- License
- not applicable — not OSS
- GitHub
- not applicable — no GitHub repo
- Pricing
- API per-token + per-screen-action
- Funding
- Anthropic (parent — $13.7B Sep-2025)
Taxonomy
- storage
- kv
- retrieval
- injection
- persistence
- session
- update
- agent-controlled
- unit
- turn
- governance
- opaque
- conflict
- stateless
When to use
Optimised for: Claude controlling a computer screen
Anti-fit: stateless capability — caller manages memory + safety
Pros & cons
Pros
First and most-discussed computer-control LLM; substrate for many higher-level agentic apps; benchmark numbers are public.
Cons
Stateless — every implementer rebuilds the memory + safety layer; per-action API cost is unpredictable.
Claims & capabilities
Anthropic API capability; first computer-control LLM at a major lab; SWE-bench / OSWorld benchmarks shipped with launch.
Technical surface
- API surface
- Anthropic Messages API with computer-use tool
- Backend storage
- stateless API
- Deployment
- API (Anthropic Cloud) — runs on caller's machine via local environment
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- API tenant
- MCP
- searched not found
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- searched not found
Compare Anthropic Computer Use with…
Similar systems
Other agent ides & coding harnesses in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Bedrock AgentCore (AWS) T2
AWS Bedrock AgentCore — managed runtime to deploy + scale + observe agents. Multi-component: Runtime, Identity, Memory, Gateway, Browser, Code Interpreter, Observability. Distinct from Bedrock Agents (older fixed-config product); AgentCore is the 2025 framework-agnostic runtime for any agent (LangGraph, CrewAI, Strands, OpenAI Agents SDK).
- Claude Code (Anthropic) T1
Anthropic's official agentic coding CLI — runs Claude as a long-running coding agent in the developer's terminal. Memory layer = CLAUDE.md (project + user scoped), agent skills, MCP servers. Released GA October 2024; widely adopted as the reference harness for Claude-as-coder. Plan Mode and Compute Use surfaces extend it from coding to broader desktop automation.
- GitHub Copilot (Agent Mode) T1
The original AI coding assistant (Copilot in editor; 2021). 2025 evolved into a full agentic surface: chat, completions, Agent Mode (multi-step), and Copilot Workspace. Backed by Microsoft. Distinct row from Workspace — this row covers the everyday in-editor + agent mode product, Workspace covers the hosted spec-driven workflow.
- Aider (harness) T2
OSS terminal coding agent by Paul Gauthier — one of the original AI-pair-programmer CLIs (2023). Architect/Editor modes; repo-map for context; uses any LiteLLM-compatible model. Memory via CONVENTIONS.md and .aider.conf.yml — author-edited markdown. Distinct from the separate Aider memory-row in "Coding-agent memory"; this row characterises the harness itself.
- Amazon Q Developer T1
Amazon's developer-focused agent — formerly CodeWhisperer (renamed 2024-Q4). Available as IDE plugins (VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio, Eclipse), in AWS Console, and CLI. Strong AWS-tooling integration: Q can read CloudWatch, troubleshoot IAM, suggest AWS-SDK code. Companion to Kiro for spec-driven flows.
- Bolt.new (StackBlitz) — harness T1
Cross-listing of Bolt.new at the harness layer. StackBlitz's WebContainer technology runs full Node.js in-browser; Bolt prompts the user for an app spec, then writes/edits/runs/deploys it entirely in-browser. The Coding-agent-memory row remains canonical for the memory framing.
Related systems
References (1)
- Anthropic Claude (foundation models) depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: Anthropic API; Docker / E2B for safe sandboxing