Get Claude working with FrameworX:  from first install to productive AI sessions in minutes.

AI Integration | Claude Skill and MCP Setup

MCP Tools connect Claude directly to the FrameworX engineering environment. Two MCP servers are available depending on your workflow:

• AI Designer connects Claude to the live Designer IDE. Every tool call produces immediate visual changes — tags, displays, alarms, and devices appear in real time while the engineer watches. 16 tools cover the full solution lifecycle from create_solution through start_runtime. This is the co-pilot experience — Claude and the engineer work side by side on the same screen.

• SolutionMCP connects Claude Code to FrameworX in a file-based workflow, no running Designer needed. Claude generates JSON configuration files following the ExportFormat 1.2 standard, which the engineer imports into Designer for validation and deployment. Twelve tools cover solution creation, object CRUD, schema queries, and documentation search. Particularly effective for analyzing existing projects (inspect structure, audit configurations, extract patterns), generating solutions from specification documents, and batch-building across multiple solutions — all from the command line.

Together, the skill conditions Claude's behavior before the first tool fires, and MCP gives Claude the tools to act on that knowledge. The result is an AI co-pilot that truly understands the platform, and builds solutions correctly from the first response.

Note: AI Runtime is a separate integration that connects AI to running solutions for live data queries and operations interactions. This page covers the Designer integration — the build-time experience. See [AI Runtime Connector](AI Runtime Connector)   for runtime setup.

What You Need

Requires a Claude Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan.

Any LLM with MCP protocol support can be used, Claude is our recommendation.

Which MCP server do I need?

You can install both. They register as separate MCP servers and do not conflict.

Step 1: Install the Claude Skill

The Claude Skill is a portable SKILL.md file that follows the Agent Skills open standard. Install it once — it activates automatically whenever you mention FrameworX, SCADA, HMI, or related topics.

On Claude.ai or Claude Desktop App

1. Download the skill file: frameworx-industrial-platform.skill
2. Open Claude → Settings → Capabilities
3. Scroll to Skills and click Upload skill
4. Select the downloaded zip file
5. Confirm it is toggled on

On Claude Code

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/frameworx-industrial-platform
cp SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/frameworx-industrial-platform/SKILL.md

Claude Code discovers skills automatically — no restart needed.

Other AI Agents

The same SKILL.md works with any compatible agent:

Step 2: Connect MCP Tools

Three connection modes depending on your setup. Pick the one that matches.

Option A: AI Designer — Stdio (Claude Code, same Windows machine)

Use this when Claude Code and FrameworX Designer run on the same Windows machine. This is the simplest setup — Claude Code launches DesignerMCP directly as a subprocess.

Prerequisites:

• FrameworX Designer v10.1.3+ installed
• Claude Code installed
• Node.js (optional — for the filesystem MCP server, see below)

Configuration:

Add to your Claude Code MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "FrameworX-Designer": {
      "command": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Tatsoft\\FrameworX\\fx-10\\MCP\\DesignerMCP.exe",
      "transport": "stdio"
    }
  }
}

Note: The path above is the default installation location. If you installed FrameworX to a different drive or folder, adjust accordingly. Use double backslashes.

Optional: Filesystem MCP Server

The filesystem MCP server allows AI to directly read the files produced by get_screenshot and inspect_application. Without it, those tools still work but you must manually upload the resulting files into the conversation for AI to see them. All other Designer tools work independently of the filesystem server.

To add the filesystem server, include it alongside DesignerMCP in your config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "FrameworX-Designer": {
      "command": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Tatsoft\\FrameworX\\fx-10\\MCP\\DesignerMCP.exe",
      "transport": "stdio"
    },
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "C:\\Users\\<username>\\Documents\\FrameworX\\Exchange",
        "C:\\Users\\Public\\Documents\\FrameworX\\Transfers"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Replace <username> with your Windows username.

The filesystem server requires Node.js. If not already installed:

1. Go to https://nodejs.org
2. Download the LTS (Long Term Support) version — choose Windows Installer (.msi), 64-bit
3. Run the installer: click Next, accept the license, keep the default install path, make sure "Add to PATH" is selected, then click Install

Option B: AI Designer — HTTP/SSE (Claude Desktop or Claude.ai, any machine)

Use this when Claude runs on a different machine than Designer, or when using Claude Desktop App or Claude.ai (the web chat interface). This mode uses HTTP with Server-Sent Events (SSE), which works across machines, across operating systems, and even across VMs.

How it works: DesignerMCPHttp runs as a lightweight HTTP server on the Windows machine alongside Designer. Claude connects to it over the network using mcp-remote, an open-source MCP-to-HTTP bridge.

Prerequisites:

• FrameworX Designer v10.1.3+ installed on the Windows machine
• .NET 8.0 Runtime installed on the Windows machine
• Node.js installed on the machine running Claude (for the mcp-remote bridge)

Step 1 — Start DesignerMCPHttp on the Windows machine

Open a command prompt and run:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Tatsoft\FrameworX\fx-10\MCP\DesignerMCPHttp"
dotnet DesignerMCPHttp.dll

Note: The path above is the default installation location. If you installed FrameworX to a different drive or folder, adjust accordingly.

This starts the HTTP/SSE server on port 4000. Leave this running — it must be started before Claude.

Important: The MCP server must be running before you launch Claude Desktop. If you restart the server, restart Claude Desktop as well.

Step 2 — Configure Claude

For Claude Desktop App, edit claude_desktop_config.json:

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "DesignerMCPHttp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://127.0.0.1:4000/sse"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Tip: You can run both AI Designer and AI Runtime simultaneously by including both configurations in your claude_desktop_config.json file. You can also add the optional filesystem MCP server (see Option A above) to enable AI to read screenshots and exported configs directly.

For Claude.ai (web interface with Claude in Chrome), the same HTTP endpoint works — configure http://127.0.0.1:4000/sse as the MCP server URL.

Step 3 — Restart Claude Desktop

Close Claude Desktop completely (use Task Manager to ensure it is fully closed) and relaunch.

Network Configuration for Remote Machines

If Designer runs on a different machine than Claude (including a Windows VM accessed from a Mac host):

• Replace 127.0.0.1 with the IP address of the Windows machine running Designer
• Open port 4000 in Windows Firewall on the Designer machine
• For Mac + Parallels/VMware: Configure port forwarding to route port 4000 from host to the Windows VM — then 127.0.0.1 works from the Mac side
• For other VM setups or remote machines: Use the VM's or remote machine's actual IP address

Example for a Designer running on 192.168.1.50:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "DesignerMCPHttp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://192.168.1.50:4000/sse"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Option C: SolutionMCP — File-Based Workflow (Claude Code, no Designer needed)

Use this when you want Claude Code to generate FrameworX configurations offline — no running Designer required. Claude creates JSON files in an Exchange folder, and the engineer imports them into Designer later for validation and deployment.

This is ideal for:

• Generating solution configurations from specifications or documents
• Analyzing existing projects, auditing configurations, extracting patterns
• Batch-building multiple solutions
• Teams where one person runs Claude Code and another reviews in Designer

Prerequisites:

• FrameworX v10.1.3+ installed (the SolutionMCP executable and schema DLLs ship with the installer)
• .NET 8.0 Runtime installed
• Claude Code installed

Configuration:

Add to your Claude Code MCP settings (.mcp.json in your project root, or global Claude Code config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "FrameworX-SolutionMCP": {
      "command": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Tatsoft\\FrameworX\\fx-10\\MCP\\SolutionMCP.exe",
      "transport": "stdio"
    }
  }
}

Note: The path above is the default installation location. If you installed FrameworX to a different drive or folder, adjust accordingly. Use double backslashes.

How the file-based workflow works:

1. Claude calls create_solution or open_solution — this creates or opens a <name>-json/ folder under Documents/FrameworX/Exchange/
2. Claude calls get_table_schema to fetch column definitions, then write_objects to generate JSON files
3. Each JSON file follows the ExportFormat 1.2 envelope structure — ready for Designer import
4. The engineer opens Designer, imports the JSON files, validates, and deploys

Available tools (12):

Tip: You can install both AI Designer and SolutionMCP side by side. They register as separate MCP servers (FrameworX-Designer and FrameworX-SolutionMCP) and do not conflict. Use AI Designer when you want live co-pilot mode, and SolutionMCP when you want offline file generation.

Step 3: Set Tool Permissions (Claude Desktop)

Security Authorization

After restarting Claude Desktop with MCP installed:

1. Go to Settings → Connectors
2. Find FrameworX-Designer (or DesignerMCPHttp) in the list
3. Click Configure and set Tool Permissions to Always Allow

Without this, Claude will prompt for authorization on every tool call. Longer responses that use many tools may fail if permissions are not set to Always Allow.

Claude Code handles tool authorization differently — it prompts inline on first use and remembers the decision for the session. No pre-configuration needed.

Verify It Works

Quick UI Check (Claude Desktop)

1. Go to Settings → Developer
2. Verify "FrameworX-Designer" (and "filesystem" if configured) show status "running"
3. Open a new chat and click Search and Tools — Designer tools should be listed
4. In Designer, verify the orange "AI Designer" badge appears

Conversation Test

Start a new Claude conversation and try:

Without MCP (skill only): Ask "How do I set up FrameworX MCP tools?" — Claude should provide step-by-step instructions from the skill, not a web search.

With AI Designer connected: Ask "Create a new FrameworX solution with a bottling line" — Claude should immediately load the New Solution skill and start building, not spend a response outlining a plan.

With SolutionMCP connected: Ask "Create a new FrameworX solution with 10 motor tags and Modbus communication" — Claude should call create_solution, fetch schemas, and start writing JSON files into the Exchange folder.

If Claude is web-searching for basic FrameworX setup information, the skill may not be enabled. Check Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

If Claude says MCP tools are not connected, verify the server is running and check your config file for typos.

Troubleshooting

Quick Reference: Config Files

Claude Desktop (Windows): %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Claude Desktop (macOS): ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Claude Code MCP (project-level): .mcp.json in your project root

Claude Code skills: ~/.claude/skills/frameworx-industrial-platform/SKILL.md

SolutionMCP workspace: Documents/FrameworX/Exchange/<SolutionName>-json/

Next Steps

• See it in action: [AI Designer In Action](AI Designer In Action)
• Technical reference: [AI Designer Connector](AI Designer Connector)
• Download Designer: tatsoft.com/fx-101 (free evaluation, unlimited tags, all features)

Community

Questions or feedback:

• Discord: discord.gg/BYhbTfyRyh
• Forum: forum.tatsoft.com