Connect Yanai to Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop supports MCP servers natively. Once connected, Claude will have access to your full Yanai context ā€” your aspects, memories, and expertise ā€” in every conversation. Your context stays yours; Claude just reads from it.

Setup

1. Open Claude Desktop Settings

Open the Claude Desktop app and navigate to Settings > Developer > Edit Config (or find the config file directly).

The config file is located at:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add Yanai to the Config

Add Yanai to the mcpServers section of your config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yanai": {
      "url": "https://mcp.yanai.ai"
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Close and reopen Claude Desktop to load the new configuration.

4. Authorize

The first time Claude tries to use Yanai, it will open a browser window for you to sign in and authorize access. Log in to your Yanai account, review the permissions, and click Authorize.

You're connected.

Choosing Your Scope

During authorization, you'll choose your context scope:

  • Personal ā€” Access to your personal aspects and memories. Great for personal productivity, learning, and general use.
  • Organization ā€” Access to your org's shared knowledge, team memories, and org-level context. Great for work tasks that benefit from team knowledge.

To connect both scopes, add two entries:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yanai-personal": {
      "url": "https://mcp.yanai.ai"
    },
    "yanai-work": {
      "url": "https://mcp.yanai.ai"
    }
  }
}

Authorize each with a different scope when prompted.

What to Expect

Once connected, Claude will:

  1. Search your context at the start of conversations to personalize responses
  2. Remember across sessions ā€” mention something once and it's in your memory next time
  3. Learn proactively ā€” important details from your conversations are stored to your Yanai profile automatically
  4. Carry context across tools ā€” what Claude learns is available in Cursor, ChatGPT, and every other connected tool

Example

Without Yanai:

"What's the best way to deploy my app?" ā†’ Generic deployment advice

With Yanai:

"What's the best way to deploy my app?" ā†’ "Since your backend is Go on Railway and your frontend is Next.js on Vercel, here's what I'd recommend for your specific setup..."

Pro Tip: Add a Project Instruction

Claude Desktop supports project-level instructions that guide the AI's behavior. Without explicit instructions, Claude will sometimes forget to store what it learns back to Yanai. Add a project (or use Claude's system prompt / custom instructions if available) with strong language:

Yanai is connected via MCP. It is my persistent memory ā€” the single source of truth across all my AI tools. You MUST use it every conversation.

START of every conversation: Call search_context to recall what you know about me and the topic. Never ask questions Yanai already has answers to.

DURING every conversation: Call store_memory IMMEDIATELY whenever I reveal preferences, decisions, project details, people, goals, opinions, or any fact worth remembering. Do NOT ask "should I save this?" ā€” just save it.

END of every conversation: Call store_memory with mode: "extract" and a summary of our conversation to capture anything you missed.

When in doubt, store it. Storage is cheap; lost context is expensive.

This makes a dramatic difference. Without it, Claude reads your context but rarely writes back. With it, every conversation makes your memory stronger ā€” and that knowledge carries to Cursor, ChatGPT, and every other connected tool.

Troubleshooting

Claude doesn't show Yanai tools

  • Double-check your claude_desktop_config.json syntax (valid JSON, correct nesting)
  • Restart Claude Desktop completely (quit and reopen)
  • Verify the URL is exactly https://mcp.yanai.ai

Authorization window doesn't appear

  • Make sure your default browser is set and working
  • Try navigating to https://yanai.ai directly to verify your account

"Server disconnected" errors

  • This can happen after long idle periods. Claude will automatically reconnect on the next message.