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Connect your AI agent

Plainpaper talks to your agent over MCP, the open standard AI tools use to connect to services. Bring whichever agent you already pay for: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or anything else that speaks MCP. Setup takes about a minute, and you only do it once per workspace.

How the connection works

Every connection ends at the same address:

https://mcp.plainpaper.io/mcp/

What differs is how your agent proves who it is, and there are only two answers. Sign-in (OAuth): you paste the address, a Plainpaper sign-in page opens, you pick which workspaces the agent may reach, and no credential ever touches your hands. An agent token: you mint a pp_ secret once on the Agents page and paste it into a config file. Chat apps take the first route; command-line and editor tools usually take the second.

Either way the connection carries the agent's identity, so every card it writes is signed with its name and the board always shows who made what.

Pick your tool

Choose what you use. Each route ends the same way: your agent reads and writes one workspace's boards.

1

Open Plainpaper in the directory

Plainpaper is in Claude's connector directory: open its listing directly, or search for Plainpaper under Settings → Connectors. Works on claude.ai and in Claude Desktop.

2

Click Connect, sign in, approve

Claude sends you to Plainpaper. Sign in, tick the workspaces this agent may reach, and approve. No token to paste.

3

Or add it by URL

Prefer a custom connector? Choose Add custom connector under Settings → Connectors and paste the endpoint. Same connector, same approval flow.

https://mcp.plainpaper.io/mcp/

Claude Code connects from the terminal with a token instead. Mint one on the Agents page, then:

Terminal
claude mcp add --transport http plainpaper \
  https://mcp.plainpaper.io/mcp/ \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Any other MCP client

Nothing above is special-cased. Windsurf, Zed, Codex, an SDK agent you wrote yourself: point it at the same endpoint and send your token as a bearer header.

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN

When you mint a token you tag which agent it's for (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, DeepSeek, or "other" with a name you type yourself), so a list of connections stays legible later. Whatever the vendor, the agent gets the same abilities: read boards, draft cards, propose actions for your approval.

Managing connections

The Agents page is also where connections live afterwards:

  • Reach: one connection can cover several workspaces. Change the set anytime; it applies on the agent's next request, with nothing to reconnect.
  • Revoke: kill a connection anytime; the agent using it is disconnected on the spot, whether it signed in or pasted a token.
  • View again: lost a token before pasting it? Open the row menu and show it again. Connections made by signing in have no secret to show.
  • Last used: each row shows when it last connected, so stale ones are easy to spot and prune.
!

Treat a token like a password. It carries editor authority over the workspaces it reaches: anyone holding it can read and write your boards. Don't paste it into shared documents, and mint one token per agent or tool. When something needs revoking, you cut one connection instead of all of them.

Test the connection

Whichever route you took, verify it the same way. Ask your agent to check in:

Copy-paste prompt
Check my Plainpaper connection. Which workspace are you connected to, and which boards can you see?

A working connection answers with your workspace's name and its boards. From there, jump to the Quickstart to give your agent its first real job.

You don't need to know any of Plainpaper's tool names to start. Tell your agent what you're marketing and what you want to happen, in your own words. It matches the goal to the playbook that fits, asks you that playbook's questions, builds the board, and shares the link. In Claude it can also show you the board right in the conversation and keep it updating as it writes; see The board inside Claude.

Copy-paste prompt
I run P&P Bookstore and want to plan a summer sale on our reading bundles. Use Plainpaper: pick the playbook that fits, ask me what you need to know, then build the board and show it to me.

Troubleshooting

The agent sees the wrong boards
The connection doesn't reach the workspace you meant. Open the Agents page, choose Workspace access on that row, and tick the workspace. It takes effect immediately. No reconnecting.
The chat app won't take my token
It can't. Chat surfaces like claude.ai and ChatGPT authenticate by sign-in, so a pp_ token has nowhere to go there. Paste the endpoint and approve instead; keep the token for Claude Code, Cursor, and other command-line or editor clients.
There's no button to add your own server
In ChatGPT, your plan or workspace doesn't allow custom MCP servers. The option is Add custom MCP server under Add on chatgpt.com/plugins, on the web only. On Business only admins and owners have it, and on Enterprise and Edu an admin has to grant Create plugins with MCPs.
A tool seems missing
Clients cache the tool list they saw at connect time. Reconnect Plainpaper, or refresh the client's tool list, and the full set comes back.

Still stuck? Run a fuller diagnostic and read what comes back:

Copy-paste prompt
Run a Plainpaper connection check: name the workspace you're connected to, list the boards you can see, and list the Plainpaper tools you have available right now.