Connecting Claude to your vault
Letting Claude read your vault while you talk to it, in the cloud or on your computer: connecting it, what it can do, what it is never given, where each request is recorded, and stopping it.
Claude can read your vault while you talk to it: the one in the cloud workbench, or the one on your computer. It can search your papers and notes by what they mean, read a document page by page, list what is in a project, and write a citation in your style. It reads; it cannot change anything.
It works through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for letting an AI assistant use tools outside itself. The workbench offers Claude a few tools, each described in words; while you talk, Claude decides when one would help, asks the workbench for a passage or a page, and reads what comes back before it answers you. Your vault stays where it is: the workbench decides what each request may have, and nothing is copied to Claude in advance.
There are two ways in, depending on where your vault is:
| Your vault is | Connect from | How |
|---|---|---|
| In the cloud workbench | Claude on the web, Claude Desktop or the Claude phone app | A custom connector, at the cloud's address: see Connecting it, below |
| On your computer | Claude Desktop or Claude Code, on the same computer | An entry in Claude's configuration: see On your computer, below |
Connecting it
You need a cloud workbench account that you have opened at least once, because that is where your vault is.
- In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, and choose Add custom connector.
- Name it Research Workbench and give it this address:
https://app.researchworkbench.space/mcp - Open Advanced settings and enter the OAuth client ID
claude. Leave the client secret empty. - Choose Add, then Connect. Claude sends you to the Research Workbench website.
- Sign in if you are not signed in already, read what Claude is asking for, and choose Allow. You are sent back to Claude.
The cloud workbench shows the same steps, with its address to copy, under Settings → Assistants.
On your computer
Claude Desktop and Claude Code can read the vault of the workbench on your computer, with no account and no subscription. The workbench must be open while they do: Claude starts a small helper, which passes each request to the open workbench and nothing else.
Open Settings → Assistants in the workbench on your computer. It shows, ready to copy with this computer's own path:
- For Claude Desktop, an entry to add to its configuration: in Claude Desktop open Settings → Developer → Edit Config, add the entry beside any servers already there, save, and restart Claude Desktop.
- For Claude Code, one command to run in a terminal, which adds the workbench for you in every project.
If the workbench is not open, Claude is told so, and asks again once you have opened it and reconnected (restart Claude Desktop, or use /mcp in Claude Code).
What Claude reads still goes to Anthropic, as it would from any document you paste into Claude, so the same rules apply as in the cloud.
What Claude can do with it
Ask in your own words, and Claude chooses the tool:
| Tool | What it gives Claude |
|---|---|
| Search the vault | Passages that answer a question, found by their words and their meaning, each with its document, section, page and position |
| Read a document | A page, or up to 20,000 characters, with where the pages fall, so a quotation can be cited by page |
| List the vault | Your projects, and a project's folders and documents |
| Cite a reference | A reference from a project's library as your papers cite it: APA 7, Harvard, IEEE or Chicago author–date |
What it is never given
The workbench applies the same rules as for any hosted model:
- Documents labelled personal or special category data, unless their folder has a recorded exception for hosted models. Claude is told how many documents were left out, so you can see why an answer is thin.
- Anything at all while privacy mode is on, or, in the cloud, after your subscription has ended.
- Any way to change your vault. The tools only read.
What your documents say is passed to Claude as material to read, never as instructions to follow.
Seeing what it read
Every request Claude makes is recorded, as every AI call is:
- Activity → Evidence lists each one, marked assistant. Open it to see The assistant asked (the tool and what it asked for) and The vault gave (exactly what was returned).
- Activity → Usage counts the requests as Claude (assistant). They cost nothing: Claude's own plan pays for Claude.
In the cloud there is a limit of requests per person, a minute and a day. When it is reached, Claude is told when it can ask again. On your computer there is none: it is your own machine.
When it does not work
"No server responded at this URL" when adding a custom connector. A custom connector is reached from Anthropic's servers, not from your computer, so it must be the cloud workbench's public address, https://app.researchworkbench.space/mcp. A workbench on your own computer - the desktop workbench, or a copy of the cloud run for development on localhost - cannot be added this way; follow On your computer, above, instead.
Claude Desktop does not show the Research Workbench tools.
- Check the configuration file is still valid: every server sits inside one
"mcpServers": { ... }, separated by commas. Settings → Developer → Edit Config opens it; on Windows it is%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json, on a Mac~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json. - Quit Claude Desktop completely - on Windows from the icon by the clock too - and open it again. It reads the file only when it starts.
- Settings → Developer lists research-workbench with whether it is running. If it failed, its log says why: on Windows
%APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp-server-research-workbench.log, on a Mac~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-research-workbench.log. - If you installed the workbench again somewhere else, the path in the entry is out of date. Copy the entry again from the workbench's Settings → Assistants.
Claude says the Research Workbench is not open. Open the workbench, then reconnect: restart Claude Desktop, or in Claude Code run /mcp and choose research-workbench. In Claude Code, claude mcp list shows whether it is connected.
Claude says privacy mode is on. Nothing is given to any assistant while Never send anything to a hosted model is ticked (Settings → Writing). Untick it if you want Claude to read the vault.
Answers are thin, or Claude says documents were withheld. Their labels keep them from hosted models, Claude included. Leave them so, or record an exception on their folder for hosted models, as for any other hosted model.
In the cloud, Claude is told the limit is reached, or the subscription has ended. The limit resets on its own; Claude is told when it can ask again. A subscription that has ended gives assistants nothing until it is renewed.
Claude cannot connect to the cloud after you revoked it. Revoking is for good. Connect it again from Claude, and allow it again on the website.
Stopping it
On your computer, remove research-workbench from Claude Desktop's configuration, or run claude mcp remove research-workbench for Claude Code; turning privacy mode on stops every assistant at once.
In the cloud, on the Research Workbench website, open your account and choose Assistants. Every assistant you allowed is listed, with when it last connected. Revoke stops it: it cannot connect again, and a request already under way has no way in after 15 minutes at most. To use it again, connect it again from Claude.