Claude Duet tester reports limits on handoffs from existing conversations

• Duet can read eligible Claude conversations for context but cannot act inside those threads, according to LLMJunky's early review.
• Local project continuity remained a sticking point: LLMJunky said importing repository files would leave accumulated local history and memory behind.
• Desktop access exists: the tester's correction retracts an earlier complaint after discovering Duet in the app's three-dot menu.

Duet's cloud browser cannot be watched or taken over, although it keeps working after the app closes. Claude Code's separate Projects beta can run selected threads on a local computer while other threads work in the cloud.

LLMJunky described three handoff boundaries in the initial review:

• Claude conversations can supply context for Duet's work.
• Claude Code sessions can supply context when Remote Control is enabled.
• Duet starts its own tasks from that context, but cannot intervene inside the original threads. Those tasks run on its own cloud computer.

Anthropic's help page gives past-chat search a specific scope: Duet chats and Claude chats outside projects. It also says Duet cannot see all projects and can read work in Claude but cannot change it.

Duet can also orchestrate the new Projects beta, LLMJunky said in a later reply.

In Claude Code, Anthropic documents four main parts:

• Project conversation: coordinates incoming work and tracks the threads it starts.
• Worker threads: handle individual tasks in separate context windows and report back.
• Shared inputs: cloud threads receive the project's repositories, files, instructions and memory, plus its cloud environment and account connectors.
• Overview: tracks thread status, produced files, pull requests and scheduled tasks.

Cloud workers use their own branches. The coordinator sees what workers report back, not every step they take.

Connecting a local folder was unavailable in the tester's setup. Importing repository files would still leave behind the history and memory accumulated around those folders, LLMJunky explained.

Duet inherits account-level memory, skills and connectors; the complaint concerned existing local project context.

The Projects documentation describes a session-level transfer: “Continue in project” brings work from an individual cloud session or eligible Remote Control session into a project. Cloud threads do not automatically inherit the Claude Code setup on the user's machine.

A hidden menu changed the review substantially. Duet was available through the three-dot menu in Chat mode, the tester explained, despite the original claim that desktop access was missing.

“This changes my review totally,” LLMJunky wrote, while saying the other feedback still applied.

After a week using Claude, another tester liked Duet's simpler dedicated app but reported three rough edges:

• The default check-in task ran five times daily and refused a requested frequency change.
• Voice appeared to work only in the Everything channel.
• Local-and-cloud thread orchestration remained unclear, with channels, projects and threads presented as separate concepts.

Anthropic opened the preview on October 21, starting with US Pro and Max subscribers through a waitlist. The preview is included at no extra subscription cost; Team and Enterprise plans are not included.

Usage is shared across Claude's web, desktop, mobile and Duet experiences, LLMJunky reported. Anthropic's usage details specify that background briefs and check-ins count toward the same five-hour and weekly limits.

Admission also grants one full limit reset, covering both limits and available until November 30, 2026.