Open Cranes

Any other AI that supports MCP

The address, sign-in, and settings for adding Cranes to any AI app or coding tool that connects to MCP servers.

What you get

Any AI that can add an MCP server by its address can use Cranes: bring in your thinking when you ask, read and change it, and save to it when you say so. Some apps have their own pages: Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Grok, Meta Muse, and agents that read skills.

Set up

  1. In your AI, find the setting for outside tools. It’s often called Connectors, Integrations, MCP servers, or Add custom connector.

  2. Add a remote server (some apps say HTTP or Streamable HTTP) named Cranes, at this address:

    https://usecranes.com/connect/mcp

  3. Choose OAuth for sign-in, and leave any API key, token, client ID, and client secret empty. There are no keys to create: the app registers itself with Cranes.

Use in other AIs in the Cranes sidebar shows the address with a copy button.

Sign in

The app opens Cranes in your browser. Sign in if you aren’t already, then on Connect … to Cranes:

  1. Under What it can use, check your own thinking, the team’s, and each group’s, in each workspace you belong to. Include groups you join later adds new groups, used only when you name them.
  2. Turn Keep my own ideas on to let Cranes keep your own words when you ask it for your thinking, never the AI’s replies. You can see and remove them in Entries.
  3. Choose Allow. You’re sent back to the app, and it lists what Cranes offers. You don’t need to turn anything on one by one.

See Choose what it can use.

How long it lasts. Each sign-in lasts 30 days. Apps that renew on their own stay connected as long as you use them at least every 90 days; others ask you to sign in again after 30 days. Removing the app under Use in other AIs cuts it off right away, and nothing in Cranes is lost when you reconnect.

If the app asks for a client ID. A few apps can’t register themselves. Register once with the app’s exact callback address (its own help says what it is), then give the app the client_id that comes back and leave the secret empty:

curl -s -X POST https://usecranes.com/oauth/register \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"client_name":"<app name>","redirect_uris":["<the app's callback address>"]}'

If the sign-in page then says This connection request is not valid, the callback address the app sent doesn’t exactly match the one you registered.

What’s automatic, and when you ask

  • Your thinking comes in when you ask. Type @cranes, or ask what your thinking says. @cranes on its own checks the work in front of the AI.
  • Saving waits for your yes. Ask it to save something, or say yes when it offers.
  • To skip typing @cranes, if your AI takes instructions, add the line under Have your AI use Cranes on its own on Use in other AIs.
  • What depends on the app. Apps that show MCP Apps, like Claude and Cursor 2.6 and later, open a view of what Cranes guided and the pages it used, and a reader for your pages; others show the same as text. Apps that support it ask with their own prompt before a change that’s hard to undo; others ask in the chat. Apps that show MCP prompts list Cranes’s shortcuts, often as slash commands.

See When Cranes comes in and What your AI can do with Cranes.

Any other AI that supports MCP Ask us