title: Setup order: 1

Setup

One download, PaperPilot.exe, works with all three ways of using Claude -- pick the one that matches how you use it.

  • Claude Desktop or claude.ai (web) -- follow Steps 1-3 below. Claude runs somewhere that can't see your computer directly, so PaperPilot opens a private tunnel and you paste a URL into a connector.
  • Claude Code -- skip to "Using PaperPilot with Claude Code" near the bottom instead. Claude Code already runs on your machine, so it doesn't need a tunnel or a URL at all.

1. Download and run

Download PaperPilot.exe and double-click it. A console window opens and stays open the whole time you're using PaperPilot -- don't close it.

The first time you run it, it downloads two small helper programs it needs (this only happens once):

  • cloudflared -- creates a private tunnel so Claude can reach PaperPilot
  • Tectonic -- compiles the LaTeX papers PaperPilot writes

This can take a minute depending on your connection. After that, starting up is instant.

2. Copy the URL it shows you

Once it's ready, you'll see something like:

======================================================================
PaperPilot is ready.

Paste this URL into Claude's connector settings:
  https://some-random-words.trycloudflare.com/mcp?token=AbCdEf123...

Keep this window open -- closing it stops PaperPilot.
Press Ctrl+C to stop.
======================================================================

Copy that whole URL (including the ?token=... part).

3. Connect it to Claude

In Claude Desktop or claude.ai:

  1. Go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
  2. Name: anything you like (e.g. "PaperPilot").
  3. Remote MCP server URL: paste the URL you copied.
  4. Leave the OAuth fields blank -- not needed.
  5. Click Add.

Then, in a chat, make sure the connector is turned on for that conversation (there's usually a connectors/tools icon near the message box), and ask Claude to use it -- for example:

Use PaperPilot to write a paper from my research folder at C:\Users\yourname\Documents\my-research

Using PaperPilot with Claude Code

Claude Code runs directly on your machine already, so it talks to PaperPilot straight over a local connection -- no tunnel, no URL, no console window to babysit. Register it once:

claude mcp add -s user paperpilot -- "C:\path\to\PaperPilot.exe" --stdio

(Use the actual path to wherever you saved PaperPilot.exe.)

Start a fresh Claude Code session afterward -- it only checks for MCP servers when a session starts, so an already-open session won't see it. Then use it the same way as any Claude Code MCP tool, e.g.:

/mcp__paperpilot__write_paper_prompt research_folder="C:\path\to\your\research" project_dir="C:\path\to\output"

You do not need Steps 1-3 above for this path -- no tunnel gets created, and there's no URL to paste anywhere.