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Claude Duet launched on October 21, 2026, and the most useful details aren't in the launch posts. They're in the help center article, which lists what the app can't do yet.

Claude Duet is Anthropic's new app where Claude works as a proactive agent. It sends a morning brief, runs tasks on its own cloud computer while your phone is off, and asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything. It runs on Claude Opus 5.5 and costs nothing extra on US Pro and Max plans, by waitlist.

That's the headline. The part worth your time is what it won't do yet, and where its own product page gets ahead of its help center.

A one-line definition first: Claude Duet is a messaging-style AI agent that comes to you instead of waiting for a prompt.

Claude Duet runs on Claude Opus 5.5, and the help center says you can't choose a different model. Duet checks your connected accounts every few hours, not nonstop. Anthropic says nonstop checking would drain plan usage limits much faster. Duet's background work counts against the same five-hour and weekly limits as normal chats.

Claude Duet differs from the Claude app in who starts the conversation. In the regular Claude app, you open a chat and work alongside it. Duet flips that. Anthropic's launch announcement describes an agent that brings you what needs attention, takes tasks by text or voice, and keeps working after you close the app.

It carries over your memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account, so there's little setup. It can also search your past Claude chats outside of projects, using the same "Search and reference chats" setting in Claude's memory settings.

The app has three tabs:

One small design choice says a lot about the intent. Duet can suggest a task looks finished, but only you can mark it complete.

Claude Duet access requires three things: a Pro or Max plan, a US Claude account, and a waitlist invite. Invitations go out in waves, so joining doesn't promise a date.

The help center lists a fourth trap that most coverage skipped. Access is tied to the email you gave the waitlist. If that email doesn't match your Claude account, or the Apple or Google account on your phone, you won't see access.

Checklist before you join:

Who's ruled out for now: anyone outside the US, Free plan users, and Team or Enterprise seats. Anthropic says Team and Enterprise will come later, with no date given.

The pitch is simple: hand it the admin work and let it come back when something needs you. Anthropic built it for professionals and small business owners, and the examples lean hard toward running a business.

From the announcement, Duet can use the 6,000+ connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace to:

For sites with no connector, it uses its own browser in the cloud. For purchases, it uses Link by Stripe or Shop Pay, and each purchase gets a one-time card that only works for that order.

This is the section I'd read first. Anthropic's help center lists these limits for the research preview:

Two of these matter more than they look. The interval checks mean Duet is a morning-and-afternoon assistant, not a pager. And the read-only rule means Duet won't quietly rewrite a doc you built in the main Claude app.

I compared the Claude Duet product page against the help center article on 22 October 2026. Two integrations shown in the product page's logo strip aren't working yet, according to Anthropic's own docs.

None of the launch coverage I read flagged this. It isn't a scandal; logo strips show the ecosystem, not the day-one feature list. But if your work runs on Outlook and Teams, Duet won't see your inbox yet, and you should know that before you wait in line.

Claude Duet's safety model rests on approval gates, credential isolation and a new leak classifier. Here's what Anthropic says sits underneath it:

One detail people miss: disconnecting an app stops future access, but Duet keeps memory of information from earlier conversations. If you want something gone, delete the chat too.

Claude Duet is the third big always-on agent in about six weeks. Meta shipped Muse on September 8, OpenAI shipped Dots on September 29, and Anthropic followed on October 21.

Prices come from each company's pricing pages and launch coverage as of 22 October 2026.

My read: Duet is the cheapest paid door into a frontier-model agent, at $20 a month on Pro. Dots reaches more places today, especially Slack, Teams and phone calls. Muse wins on price for casual personal errands, which is exactly where Anthropic says Duet is weaker. If you're a solo operator who lives in Gmail, Stripe and QuickBooks, Duet's connector list fits best. If your company runs on Microsoft 365, wait.

Search "claude duet" on GitHub and the top result isn't Anthropic's. It's EliranG/claude-duet, an open-source tool by Eliran Geffen that lets two developers share one Claude Code session in real time.

I ran npm view claude-duet on 22 October 2026 and got version 0.3.2, MIT licensed. The npm registry shows the claude-duet package was created on 8 March 2026. That's seven months before Anthropic used the name. The repo had 143 stars and 8 forks when I checked.

The two products have nothing in common beyond the name:

If a tutorial tells you to run npx claude-duet to get Anthropic's agent, it's wrong. That command starts a pair-programming session that gives your partner the ability to run prompts on your machine, so only use it with people you trust.

Duet uses your plan's usage limits at the same rate as chats in Claude, plus background work. The morning brief and check-ins count, so you may hit limits sooner than with chat alone. Big jobs like a financial model or a deck take more model turns.

Practical move for Pro users: tell Duet what you want to hear about and how often. Anthropic says you can set this, and fewer pings means less background work.

Claude Duet is Anthropic's proactive agent app, opened as a research preview on October 21, 2026. It sends a morning brief, takes tasks by text or voice, works on its own cloud computer, and asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes.

No. It costs nothing on top of a Pro ($20/month) or Max (from $100/month) plan, but it uses that plan's usage limits.

Not yet. The research preview is limited to Claude accounts in the US, and Anthropic hasn't announced other regions.

Not yet. The help center says Microsoft 365 isn't available in Duet, even though the logo appears on the product page.

Yes, with approval. It pays through Link by Stripe or Shop Pay, and each purchase uses a one-time card that only works for that order.

No. The claude-duet npm package is a community tool by Eliran Geffen for sharing a Claude Code session. It has no connection to Anthropic's app.

Join the Claude Duet waitlist if you're on a US Pro or Max plan. It fits best when your work lives in Gmail, Google Calendar, Stripe, QuickBooks or Shopify. It costs nothing extra, and the approval gates keep the risky actions with you. Hold off if your stack is Microsoft 365, or if you mostly want help with personal errands.