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Connecting Claude Desktop (stdio)

The servers declared in claude_desktop_config.json are processes that Claude Desktop launches itself and talks to through their standard input and output (stdio). PalmaPlan has served this mode all along, alongside the HTTP + OAuth door of Claude Code. (The remote connectors Claude Desktop adds through its settings would talk to /mcp the way Claude Code does; that path has not been tried with PalmaPlan.)

The configuration

Open claude_desktop_config.json and add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "palmaplan": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/palmaplan/packages/mcp/dist/main.js"],
      "env": {
        "PALMAPLAN_TOKEN": "pp_the-named-token",
        "PALMAPLAN_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:4785"
      }
    }
  }
}

Settings › Connections and agents › Advanced access (/settings?onglet=avance) gives you this snippet already filled in when you create a named token — in principle only the path to main.js needs adapting.

The documented pitfall: which address for PALMAPLAN_URL

PALMAPLAN_URL must be the full process's address (serveur.js, what pnpm start launches — the API, the built screen and the embedded view, in the same process), never the API alone's (packages/api/dist/main.js).

The reason: for a client that does not render MCP Apps, show_schedule builds the /embed view's address from that same origin (or from PALMAPLAN_PUBLIC_URL over HTTP). If PALMAPLAN_URL points to an API that does not serve /embed/:id, that link leads nowhere, while every other tool keeps working, since they only talk to the API. The symptom is therefore misleading: everything seems to work, until the day you open a schedule's link. Claude Desktop, for its part, shows the native view in the conversation: it is served by the MCP server itself (the ui://palmaplan/planning resource) and reads everything through it, without going through /embed.

Trying the view in Claude Desktop

The view in the conversation is proven against the repository's test host, not yet in Claude Desktop. Here are the steps to try it. They require quitting and relaunching Claude Desktop: don't run them during an agent session in progress in Claude Desktop.

  1. PalmaPlan is running, in a version that contains the native view (0.25.0 or later — it arrived with sprint 24, MCP Apps; the version served today is 0.27.0): http://127.0.0.1:4785/api/v1/health answers, and its version says so (use your instance's address). The MCP process Claude Desktop launches must come from the same version: it is the one carrying the view.
  2. A named token: Settings › Connections and agents › Advanced access, "Create a token", named "Claude Desktop — view trial", with Write checked (read and write). Copy the pp_… secret: it won't be shown again. Don't paste it into any conversation.
  3. Declare the server: Claude Desktop › Settings › Developer › Edit config, then add the palmaplan entry from the configuration above, with that token and the full process's address. Node 24 is fine ("command" can be its absolute path).
  4. Quit Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q) and relaunch it. Claude Desktop › Settings › Developer must show "palmaplan" running. Otherwise, the server's log (mcp-server-palmaplan.log, in Claude's logs folder) says "serveur MCP PalmaPlan prêt — API : <address>", then "connexion établie — N planning(s) accessible(s)". If it says the server refused the token, the token is revoked or isn't a named token of this instance.
  5. What to type, in a new conversation:

- "Show me the <name> schedule in the conversation." Claude should call show_schedule. - "Make it full screen", then "Show this schedule's kanban", then "and the agenda". - Select a bar in the view, then: "Move this bar by a week." - "What would happen if I moved <a bar> by a week?" (what_if), then "Accept" in the view.

  1. What you should see:

- the Gantt chart in the conversation, in Claude Desktop's theme colours, inline then full screen; - a bar moved in the view also moves on the web screen open alongside, and the other way round (after a few seconds); - Claude moves the selected bar without asking which one; - the what_if before/after, and "Accept" applying it.

  1. To report: the Claude Desktop version, what is displayed (a screenshot, without secrets), what the frame's console says if developer mode is on, and Claude's answer to each request. An empty frame, or duplicated tools, are findings as valuable as a success.
  2. Undo: remove the palmaplan entry from the configuration, relaunch Claude Desktop, then revoke the token under Settings › Connections and agents › Connected applications.

To confirm

The real Claude Desktop trial against this configuration has never been run. Sprint 14 (2026-09-21) prepared a dedicated trial plan and the configuration above, and sprint 24 the steps for the view. But the trial itself (opening Claude Desktop, pasting this block, checking that the conversation sees the tools and that show_schedule displays the view) needs hands-on access to the machine where Claude Desktop is installed, and hasn't happened. What is verified, on the other hand: stdio itself (the MCP protocol over standard input/output) is exercised continuously by the repository's recettes and by sprint 14's demo video, where a real MCP client over stdio builds a schedule gesture by gesture while a browser follows the screen through the real-time channel. What's missing, precisely, is the trial inside Claude Desktop itself.