If you have saved prompts, evals, or completions in the Anthropic legacy Workbench, you have 15 days to get them out — after August 17, 2026, that data is gone with no recovery option.

Anthropic confirmed the hard sunset in the official Claude Platform release notes: the legacy Workbench at platform.claude.com/workbench is retiring on August 17, 2026. The replacement Workbench (platform.claude.com/playground) is stateless by design and will not import your legacy data.

This is a real deadline with real consequences. Let’s make sure you don’t lose anything.

What’s Getting Deleted

On August 17, the following become permanently inaccessible:

  • Saved prompts — any prompts you stored in the legacy Workbench
  • Prompt versions and revision history
  • Variables defined in prompts
  • Evals and eval results
  • Model completions (saved response outputs)
  • Uploaded files (images and PDFs attached to prompts)

Three experimental API endpoints are also being retired on the same date:

  • /v1/experimental/generate_prompt
  • /v1/experimental/improve_prompt
  • /v1/experimental/templatize_prompt

If your code calls any of these endpoints, they will return errors after August 17. Update any integrations that rely on them now.

Step-by-Step: How to Export Before the Deadline

Anthropic built an export tool directly into the legacy Workbench. Here’s how to use it:

Step 1: Access the legacy Workbench

Log in to the Claude Console at platform.claude.com. If your account has legacy Workbench data, you should see a banner near the top of the page directing you to the old Workbench. Follow that link.

Step 2: Initiate the export

In the legacy Workbench interface, locate the banner at the top of the page and click “Export data.” This opens the Export Workbench Data dialog.

Step 3: Choose what to include

The dialog lets you select:

  • Model completions — saved output from past Workbench runs
  • Uploaded files — any images or PDFs you attached

⚠️ Note: Including completions or uploaded files can significantly increase the export size. If you only need your prompts and variables, skip these to keep the export small.

Step 4: Export and download

Click “Export.” Anthropic will package your data as a JSON file and send a download link to your email. The time varies depending on how much data you have.

You can also find the export option under Organizational Settings if you’re a Console admin.

What the New Workbench Doesn’t Do

The replacement Workbench (platform.claude.com/playground) is intentionally simpler. It’s built directly on the Messages API and is great for quick testing — but it is stateless. That means:

  • No saved prompts — you can’t persist prompts across sessions
  • No prompt versioning — no history or rollback
  • No evals — evaluation workflows need to move to your own tooling
  • No import — your exported JSON cannot be loaded into the new Workbench

If you were using the legacy Workbench as a lightweight prompt registry, you’ll need to move that workflow somewhere else. Options include:

  • A git repository with prompt files (simplest, most portable)
  • A dedicated prompt management tool like PromptLayer or LangSmith
  • Directly in your application codebase with versioning via commits

Saving Prompts as Code

The new Workbench has a useful code export feature: once you build a test in the playground, you can click the “Code” tab to get a runnable Python/TypeScript snippet that calls the Messages API with your exact settings. This is a clean workflow if you want to migrate prompts into reproducible scripts.

Action Checklist

Before August 17, 2026:

  • Log in to platform.claude.com and check for legacy Workbench access
  • Export your data via the “Export data” banner (you’ll get a JSON download link by email)
  • Review exported JSON and move critical prompts to git, a prompt tool, or your codebase
  • Update any code calling /v1/experimental/generate_prompt, /v1/experimental/improve_prompt, or /v1/experimental/templatize_prompt
  • Test your prompt workflows against the public Messages API

Sources

  1. Anthropic Claude Platform Release Notes — official announcement of legacy Workbench retirement on August 17, 2026
  2. Anthropic API Release Notes — experimental endpoint retirement details
  3. Claude Help Center: How do I use the Workbench? — step-by-step export instructions confirmed here

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