All Categories
MCP
Connecting TrueBuilt to Claude (MCP)

Connecting TrueBuilt to Claude (MCP)

A description for your article

Last updated on August 4, 2021

TrueBuilt ships an MCP server, which lets an AI assistant such as Claude work directly with your TrueBuilt data like: projects, bid packages, takeoffs, estimates and databases, without copying anything by hand. You connect once, sign in with your normal TrueBuilt credentials, and the assistant acts on your behalf, with your permissions.

Before You Start

  • A TrueBuilt account: the assistant signs in as you and can only see what you can see.
  • A Claude account: Claude web, Claude Desktop, or Claude Code. Custom connectors require a paid Claude plan.
  • The server URL: https://mcp.truebuilt.app/mcp
  • Nothing to paste: there is no API key or token. Claude runs the sign-in for you in your browser.

Enable It in TrueBuilt (Administrators)

Before anyone can connect, an administrator has to turn the assistant on for the organization and choose what it is allowed to do. Everything lives on one page.

Open the settings page

  1. In the top navigation, click Admin.
  1. Click Integrations.
  1. Open AI Assistant.
  1. Turn on Enabled for this organization (top right). While this is off, nobody in the organization can connect, the badge next to the title shows Active once it is on.

The Connection card

  • Server URL: the address people paste into Claude. Use the copy button and share it with your team.
  • Sign-in and Acts as: a reminder that each person signs in with their own TrueBuilt account and the assistant acts with that person's permissions.
  • How to connect: the same steps as below, kept on the page so you can send someone straight to it.

What the assistant may do

This is where you choose the tools. They are split into two groups:

  • Read: projects, bid packages, takeoffs, estimates, catalogues.
  • Write: create projects, edit items and costs, draw measurements, delete records.

Each group has a master toggle on the right of its title, and every tool underneath has its own toggle. Turn off the group to disable everything in it at once, or leave the group on and switch off individual tools such as delete_takeoff.

Click Save changes when you are done. A tool that is switched off is not simply hidden — it is never offered to Claude at all, so it cannot be used even by someone who connected earlier.

💡

People who were already connected will keep seeing the old list of tools until they reconnect. After changing permissions, ask them to reconnect the TrueBuilt connector in Claude (or run /mcp in Claude Code) to pick up the change.

Connect Claude (Desktop and Web)

1. Open Claude's settings.

2. Click Customize. It is the last item at the bottom of the left sidebar.

3. Customize opens on Skills.

4. Click Connectors in the side menu. This is the page your connectors live on, TrueBuilt is not there yet.

5. Click Add in the top right, then Add custom connector.

6. Fill in the name and the URL. The name TrueBuilt, this is what shows in your connectors list, and the URL https://mcp.truebuilt.app/mcp. Claude then inspects the server and fills in the rest by itself: Authentication is detected as Always required and OAuth client as No client ID — register one automatically. Leave both as detected; there is no client ID, secret, token or header to add.

7. Scroll down and click Add.

8. Click Connect to Claude. Adding the connector does not sign you in. Its page opens with a Connect to Claude button, that is what starts the sign-in.

9. Confirm in the browser, then sign in to TrueBuilt. Your browser opens on Finish connecting a connector? — click Continue connecting, then sign in with your TrueBuilt account and approve the access request.

10. You are connected. Back in Claude, the TrueBuilt connector now shows Disconnect and a Tool permissions list. This is where you decide, per tool, whether Claude may use it without asking, and you only ever see the tools your organization has given you.

Connect Claude Code (CLI)

For developers working in the terminal:

claude mcp add --transport http \
  --client-id tb-mcp --callback-port 8090 \
  truebuilt https://mcp.truebuilt.app/mcp

Run /mcp inside a Claude Code session to start the sign-in. The token is stored and refreshed by Claude.

Check That It Works

Ask Claude:

  • "Who am I in TrueBuilt?" — this runs the whoami tool and echoes back your user and organization. If it answers with your name, the connection is good.
  • "List my TrueBuilt projects."

What You Can Ask For

  • Projects and databases: list projects, open one, review the databases and master items behind it.
  • Bid packages and estimates: read an estimate, its components, items, lines and payroll, or pull a markup breakdown.
  • Takeoff: inspect takeoffs, plans and measurements.
  • Documents: list and read the plan sets and files on a project.

Depending on what your organization allows, Claude can also make changes, create projects, edit items and costs, or draw takeoff measurements.

Permissions and Security

  • Claude acts as you. Every action is authorized with your own login and respects the same permissions and organization boundaries as the TrueBuilt app. It is recorded in TrueBuilt's audit trail under your name.
  • Your administrator controls the tools. Access is split into two groups, Read and Write, and an administrator can enable or disable either group — or individual tools — under Admin → Integrations → AI Assistant. Tools that are turned off never appear in Claude.
  • You control when they run. In the connector's Tool permissions list you can let a tool run always, ask every time, or never.
  • Write access is off by default. Until an administrator enables it, Claude can read your data but cannot change it.
  • You can disconnect at any time with Disconnect on the connector page, and revoke the assistant's access from your TrueBuilt account.

Troubleshooting

Claude cannot reach the server, or no tools appear at all. Check with an administrator that Enabled for this organization is on under Admin → Integrations → AI Assistant.

The connector was added but nothing works. Adding is not connecting. Open the connector and click Connect to Claude to run the sign-in.

The browser asks "Finish connecting a connector?". That is expected when you started from Claude Desktop — click Continue connecting. If you did not start a connection yourself, click Not now: a link on its own can never connect anything to your account.

A tool you expected is missing. The tool is probably switched off for your organization. Ask an administrator to check Admin → Integrations → AI Assistant → What the assistant may do. If it was just switched on, reconnect the connector so Claude reloads the tool list.

Claude says it cannot find a project or estimate. Confirm you can open the same record in the TrueBuilt app with your own login. The assistant sees exactly what you see, nothing more.

The connection stops working after a while. Sessions expire for security. Reconnect the connector and sign in again.

Still stuck? Reach out to TrueBuilt support with the name of the tool or the question you asked, and we can trace it.

 
 
Did this answer your question?
😞
😐
🤩
Fieldwire Integration