Connecting ByDesign to AI clients with MCP

🔌 What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a standard that lets AI assistants connect to apps and work with your actual data.

Connecting ByDesign means your AI client can see your real tasks, events, habits and pages, and make changes for you. It's not a copy of your data sitting somewhere else — it reads and writes to your live workspace.

Everything stays behind your login. You authorize the connection once, and you can disconnect it any time.

You'll find the setup steps and your server URL in Settings → MCP inside ByDesign.

🖥 Connecting Claude Desktop

1. Open Claude Desktop Launch the app on your computer.

2. Open Connectors settings Go to Settings → Connectors → Customize.

3. Add a Custom MCP Click Add Custom MCP.

4. Enter the ByDesign details

• Name: ByDesign

• Server URL: https://mcp.bydesign.io/mcp

Leave Advanced Settings blank.

5. Click Add and authorize Your browser will open automatically. Sign in to your ByDesign account and click Authorize.

6. Restart Claude Desktop Close it completely, then open it again.

That's it. Your ByDesign workspace is now connected.

💬 Connecting ChatGPT

You'll need Developer Mode enabled and a ChatGPT plan that supports custom MCP connectors.

1. Open ChatGPT In your browser or the desktop app.

2. Open Apps settings Go to Settings → Apps.

3. Enable Developer Mode If it isn't already on, turn it on in Connectors settings.

4. Create a new app Click Create app.

5. Enter the ByDesign details

• Name: ByDesign

• MCP Server URL: https://mcp.bydesign.io/mcp

Leave everything else at its default.

6. Create and authorize Click Create. Your browser will open automatically. Sign in to your ByDesign account and click Authorize.

7. Start a new chat Head back to ChatGPT and start a new chat with the ByDesign connector enabled.

⌨️ Connecting Claude Code

Claude Code uses the same server URL. Follow the steps shown under Claude Code in Settings → MCP inside ByDesign.

✨ What you can do once it's connected

Once connected, you can talk about your ByDesign workspace in plain language. Here's what it can reach.

Your schedule

• See what's on for today, tomorrow, or any date

• Look across a range of days, weeks or months

• Check what's overdue

• Pull up the full details of any task, event or habit

Try: "What's on my plate today?" or "What did I miss last week?"

Tasks

• Create single tasks or several at once

• Add tasks straight to your inbox

• Add subtasks

• Reschedule, update, complete or delete

• Move tasks between pages, folders or the inbox

• Search across your whole workspace

• Find and merge duplicates

Try: "Add three tasks for the launch prep on Thursday" or "Move everything unfinished to next week."

Events

• Create events with guests, recurrence and reminders

• Reschedule or update any detail

• RSVP to invitations

• Delete events and cancel them for guests

Try: "Book a 30 minute catch up with Sam on Friday afternoon."

Habits

• Create habits with recurrence

• Log them as done, skipped or undone

• Update the schedule or timing

• See which ones are on track

Try: "Mark my morning run as done for today."

Pages and notes

• Read any page in full, including its tasks

• Create new pages

• Add content or tasks to an existing page

• Update or delete pages

• Organise pages into folders

• Share a page with someone in your workspace

Try: "Add a note to my Portugal trip page about booking the Sintra tickets."

Reminders

• Add reminders to any task, event or habit

• See what reminders are already set

• Remove them

Calendars

• See which calendars are connected

• Read events from Google, Apple or Outlook

• Push a ByDesign event, task or habit to a connected calendar

Workspace overview

• Get a health check across your whole workspace

• See every project and page with its current state

• Check your scheduling preferences and timezone

Try: "How's my workspace looking? Anything falling behind?"

🔗 Using ByDesign alongside your other tools

This is where MCP gets genuinely useful. If you've connected other apps to the same AI client, you can move information between them without copying anything by hand.

A few combinations worth trying.

Slack → ByDesign

Pull commitments out of a conversation before they get lost.

"Read the thread in #product from this morning and add anything I agreed to as tasks for this week."

Useful after a long standup or a decision thread where three things got assigned to you and none of them made it anywhere.

Gmail → ByDesign

Turn an email into something you'll actually do.

"Find the email from the accountant about the filing deadline and add the steps as tasks with the right dates."

Works well for anything with a deadline buried in a paragraph, like renewals, invoices or booking confirmations.

Google Drive or Notion → ByDesign

Plan from a document instead of re-reading it.

"Open the Q4 roadmap doc and create a page in ByDesign with the milestones as tasks."

Good for turning a brief or a spec into an actual schedule rather than a document you keep meaning to action.

Calendar → ByDesign

Work out where things fit before you commit.

"Look at my calendar next week and tell me where I could fit three hours of focused work."

Your connected calendars are already visible to ByDesign, but pairing them in one conversation lets you reason across both.

Going the other way

It works in reverse too.

"Look at what's on my plate this week in ByDesign and draft a short update for the team in Slack."

"Check my overdue tasks and write me an email to the client explaining the new timeline."

Why this is worth setting up

Each connector on its own is handy. Together they close the gap that usually kills follow-through — the bit where something is agreed in one place and needs to end up somewhere else before anyone forgets.

You don't need all of them. Start with wherever your work actually arrives, usually Slack or email, and connect that one first.

💡 A few things worth knowing

It reads and writes. Your AI client can make real changes to your workspace, not just read it. Deleting a page or an event is permanent, so be clear about what you're asking for.

It uses your real settings. Your work hours, calendar blocks and scheduling preferences all apply. If you've told ByDesign not to schedule before 9am, that's respected here too.

Your connected calendars are included. If you've synced Google, Apple or Outlook, those events are visible when it's working out your availability.

Disconnecting is easy. Remove the connector from your AI client any time.

🤔 Troubleshooting

It doesn't see ByDesign after setup For Claude Desktop, make sure you fully quit and reopened the app. A window refresh isn't enough. For ChatGPT, start a fresh chat with the connector enabled.

Authorization didn't open Check that pop-ups aren't blocked in your browser, then try adding the connector again.

It can't find something you know exists Try naming it more specifically. "My Portugal trip page" works better than "that trip thing."

Still stuck? Reach out through the in-app chat and we'll help you sort it.