Connect your agent

GroundSlate is an MCP server that runs on your Mac. Your AI client connects to it locally and drives it. Your library is never uploaded to us. Your model provider sees only the text your agent puts in a prompt.

The short version

Install the app and launch it. Setup ends on a Connect your AI apps screen that wires up whichever clients it finds. Quit and reopen the client, and GroundSlate is there.

You can run that flow again at any time from GroundSlate, Connect AI Apps.... It is safe to repeat.

Wiring a client by hand

If your client was not detected, the app's dashboard shows a config block to copy. Paste it into the client's MCP settings and restart it.

This command prints the same block:

PYTHONPATH="/Applications/GroundSlate.app/Contents/Resources" \
  "$HOME/Library/Application Support/GroundSlate/venv/bin/python" \
  -m groundslate.connect --print

PYTHONPATH matters. The groundslate package lives inside the app bundle, not in the virtual environment, and both the setup script and the app point at it this way. Without it the client reports ModuleNotFoundError: No module named groundslate.

What connects

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf, Zed and the Gemini CLI all speak MCP and all work. So does any other MCP client.

The setup screen writes the configuration for five of them: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT Desktop, Cursor and the Gemini CLI. Each entry goes into that client's own settings file and is merged with what is already there. For Cline, Windsurf and Zed, paste the block above into their MCP settings, or run the command above with --client cline, --client windsurf or --client zed in place of --print to write the entry into that client's settings file.

The screen also shows an Ollama tile, marked "via MCP bridge". Ollama runs models but is not an MCP client, so setup writes nothing for it. Ticking it tells you to install mcp-client-for-ollama and point that at GroundSlate. Setup never pre-selects this tile, even when it finds Ollama on the Mac.

The claude.ai and ChatGPT websites cannot connect. They reach out from the vendor's servers, and your Mac is not on the public internet. Use the desktop apps.

Check it worked

Type this to your agent. It is the same phrase the setup screen gives you:

Tell GroundSlate MCP hello, then tell me what my Mac is missing.

That runs hello and system_requirements. The second one reports what this Mac has and what it still needs, which is the fastest way to find an unfinished setup.

What your agent reads when it connects

On connecting, your agent gets a short description of each tool: enough to pick the right one, plus the refusals and accepted values it has to know in advance. The full guide to a tool is one call away, help with the tool's name, and a well behaved agent reads it before its first use of a tool or after a refusal it does not recognise. That keeps the opening load light, so more of your agent's context is left for your footage and your questions.

How far it can reach

An agent reaches only as far as you allow, and it cannot widen that itself.

• Allowed folders are granted one at a time in the app, under Data. add_allowed_folder is disabled for MCP clients: your agent can see what it may read with list_folders, but it cannot add a folder.
• Access tokens work the same way. create_token and revoke_token are settings only you can change, in the app. list_tokens and access_status are read only, so an agent can see what it has been granted and what it has spent.
• Provider keys for paid web services are added, edited and switched off only in the app, under Data then Provider Keys, and switching off the Provider gateway there stops every key at once. An agent can list them by name and call a service through one, within the hosts and limits you set, but it never sees the key.
• Privacy mode replaces the names in your People catalog with tokens before your agent sees them. You still search for people by name; the agent works in IDs. Biometrics are never shared with an agent.

Driving it from a second Mac

If the library lives on a Studio or a mini and you work on a laptop, install the same app on both.

1. On the Mac with the library, open MCP Connect and turn on Allow bridge connections.
2. On the second Mac, launch GroundSlate and choose to connect. Pick your host from the list.
3. The host shows a six digit code. Type it on the second Mac.
4. Pick the AI apps to wire up, and restart them.

Both Macs must be on the same network. The traffic stays on it, encrypted with a certificate the two Macs agree on while pairing. A bridge Mac needs no license of its own: it holds no library and makes nothing by itself.

The second Mac then runs as a menu bar app, and finished videos arrive in ~/Movies/GroundSlate/From <host>/ at full size.

To revoke a bridge, remove it from the paired list in MCP Connect on the host. It loses access on its next request.