Connect Claude & your coding agents to NovaMind

NovaMind speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol) at a single endpoint. Your agent gets three tools: novamind_ask (grounded, citation-backed answers), novamind_search (fast supporting passages), and novamind_domains (the knowledge domains you can filter by).

Two ways in: Claude Desktop / claude.ai connect natively with no API key (section 1 — sign-in & approve in the browser), and coding agents use a per-device API key (sections 2–3).

1 · Claude Desktop & claude.ai — no key needed

Claude Desktop (app):

Open Settings → Connectors (on some versions: Settings → Extensions → Connectors).
Click Add custom connector. Name it NovaMind, URL https://novamind.design/mcp, click Add.
Claude opens NovaMind's approval page in your browser — sign in with your NovaMind email + password if asked, review the access summary, click Approve.
Back in Claude, the connector shows as connected. In a chat, open the tools menu (search-and-tools icon) and make sure NovaMind is enabled — then just ask something creative-tech and Claude will call it.

claude.ai (web): same flow — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → URL https://novamind.design/mcp → Add → sign in & Approve on the NovaMind page.

Disconnecting / re-connecting: remove the connector in Claude's settings, and/or revoke NovaMind-side in the memory drawer (🧠) → connected apps. Access tokens expire on their own (7 days, auto-refreshed up to 90) — revoking kills them immediately.
If the approval page says "unknown client_id": the registration went stale — remove the connector in Claude and add it again (it re-registers automatically).
No API key is involved in this flow; nothing to copy or store.

2 · Coding agents — get an API key

Sign in at novamind.design → open the memory drawer (🧠, top right) → agent api keys.
Mint a key with a label naming the device/agent ("Claude Code — laptop"). It's shown once — copy it now.
Store it as an environment variable, e.g. NOVAMIND_API_KEY.

Never paste the literal key into a file inside a repository. Leaked agent-config files are the #1 key-leak vector. Every snippet below reads the key from an env var. If a key leaks: drawer → revoke → mint a replacement.

3 · Add NovaMind to your coding agent

Claude Code — one command:

claude mcp add --transport http novamind https://novamind.design/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $NOVAMIND_API_KEY"

Cursor — ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or project .cursor/mcp.json):

{"mcpServers": {"novamind": {
  "url": "https://novamind.design/mcp",
  "headers": {"Authorization": "Bearer ${env:NOVAMIND_API_KEY}"}}}}

Windsurf — ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (note serverUrl):

{"mcpServers": {"novamind": {
  "serverUrl": "https://novamind.design/mcp",
  "headers": {"Authorization": "Bearer ${env:NOVAMIND_API_KEY}"}}}}

VS Code (Copilot agent mode) — .vscode/mcp.json (prompts once, stores securely):

{"inputs": [{"id": "novamind-key", "type": "promptString",
             "description": "NovaMind API key", "password": true}],
 "servers": {"novamind": {"type": "http",
   "url": "https://novamind.design/mcp",
   "headers": {"Authorization": "Bearer ${input:novamind-key}"}}}}

Anything else (stdio-only clients, no header support) — the mcp-remote bridge:

{"mcpServers": {"novamind": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://novamind.design/mcp",
           "--header", "Authorization:Bearer ${AUTH_TOKEN}"],
  "env": {"AUTH_TOKEN": "nvm_ak_…"}}}}

4 · Notes

Agent usage shares your account's daily budget and rate limits — a runaway loop gets a clean 429 with Retry-After.
novamind_ask modes: fast (~2s) · normal · deep (widest retrieval, slower).
Revoke any key instantly from the drawer; mint up to 5 (one per device/agent keeps revocation surgical).

NovaMind · Atelier84 · Terms