Open Settings › AI, click Connect beside Claude Desktop and restart Claude Desktop, and Claude can read and edit your project from its own chat window.
Where: Settings (the menu button, top right) › AI › Connect an AI app › Claude Desktop
What it is
Claude Desktop is the one app Filamental connects for you. We write the entry into Claude Desktop's settings file with the right paths for your computer, so there's nothing to copy or edit. It's offered on Windows and macOS, where Claude Desktop runs.
How to use it
- Open Settings from the menu button at the top right of Filamental, and choose AI.
- Click Connect beside Claude Desktop, under Connect an AI app.
- Restart Claude Desktop. The row now says Connected, with Restart Claude Desktop to finish connecting under it.
Once Claude Desktop has restarted, Claude can search, read and edit your project. Ask it anything about the project, or have a conversation and then say "build this in Filamental".
It follows the project you open. The connection names no project, so Claude works on whichever one you last opened in Filamental. Open another and Claude moves with you within a couple of seconds, with no restart.
What the row tells you
- Checking…: Filamental is looking for Claude Desktop's settings.
- Not found: Filamental can't find Claude Desktop's settings file on this computer. Install Claude Desktop and reopen this page, or use Other AI apps below it (Connect Other AI Apps).
- Connect: Claude Desktop is there and not yet connected.
- Connected, with Disconnect: Claude can reach your projects. Disconnect takes Filamental out of Claude Desktop's settings.
Tips
- Filamental also connects it by itself. Whenever a project opens, Filamental writes its entry into Claude Desktop's settings file, so you may find the row already says Connected. That also means a Disconnect lasts only until the next project you open.
- Open the project once first. The connection reads the index Filamental builds when a project opens. See Connect an AI App.
- Node.js 22 or later has to be installed, since Claude Desktop starts the server with it.
- Your Claude plan does the work. Claude Desktop talks to Claude on your own account. Nothing passes through us.
- Claude can't create classifications or connector types. It proposes them, and you add them in the Left Panel.
- Its changes aren't on Filamental's undo list. Ask Claude to put them back (Undo and Redo).
How this helps you
Use it when Claude Desktop is already where you think out loud. Talk a subject through, then ask Claude to lay it out as a project and watch the structure appear in Filamental. Come back days later, ask it to read the project again, and it picks up where you left off.
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