Connecting Claude Code, Codex and other agents to Spindle

Spindle has an MCP server, so Claude Code, Codex, Claude, ChatGPT and other agents that speak MCP can reach your time. Add its address to the agent, sign in through your browser, and ask in plain words, such as “describe today’s entries in Spindle” or “fill in yesterday”.

The address is /mcp on your Spindle server:

• Spindle Cloud: https://app.spindletrack.com/mcp
• Your own server: for example https://spindle.example.com/mcp

The examples on this page use Spindle Cloud’s. On your own server, put in yours.

The agent, its model and its cost are yours: Spindle gives it your time and the evidence, and the agent does the work. See What you can ask your agent for what it can do.

Connect from the desktop app

The Mac and Windows apps do the setup for Claude Code and Codex:

1. Open Settings › Agents.
2. Under Connect an agent, click Connect next to Claude Code or Codex. The app adds Spindle to the agent as a server called spindle, for the server you’re signed in to, and replaces anything the agent already had under that name.
3. Your browser opens to sign in. Choose the workspace and allow the agent.
4. Start a new session in the agent and ask.

Once added, the agent shows Added, and Sign In Again signs it in once more. Copy Commands copies the commands below, to run them yourself. Under Claude, ChatGPT and other apps, Copy Address copies the address for a connector.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user spindle https://app.spindletrack.com/mcp
claude mcp login spindle

The second command opens your browser to sign in. You can also sign in from Claude Code: run /mcp, choose spindle, then Authenticate.

If Claude Code already has a server called spindle, such as the one earlier versions of the desktop app added, remove it first with claude mcp remove --scope user spindle, or give the new one another name.

Codex

codex mcp add spindle --url https://app.spindletrack.com/mcp

Codex opens your browser to sign in straight away. codex mcp login spindle signs in again later.

Claude and ChatGPT

In Claude, open Settings › Connectors, choose Add custom connector, name it Spindle and give it the address. Claude opens Spindle to sign in. The connector then also works in the Claude apps on the desktop and the phone.

In ChatGPT, turn on developer mode in the settings, then add a custom connector named Spindle with the address and OAuth. ChatGPT opens Spindle to sign in. On a ChatGPT workspace, an admin may have to allow custom connectors first.

Signing in

When an agent connects, Spindle opens in your browser and says which agent asks to use Spindle as you. You choose:

• The workspace it may reach, if you have more than one. It sees nothing in your other workspaces.
• Also let it describe entries, run the timer and propose time. On by default. Turned off, the agent can only read.

Click Allow with the agent’s name, such as Allow Claude Code, or Don’t allow. An agent allowed only to read is told so when it tries to change something. To let it, connect it again and leave the box on.

What the agent sees

The agent reads, in the workspace you chose:

• your entries, projects, tasks and reports, and the timer
• the proposals waiting for you, and what became of those from the last week
• your recent descriptions on the project, so new ones read like yours

To describe an entry or fill in missing time, it also gets your agent activity for that time, if you turned on activity sync: Sync agent activity to your account in the desktop app’s Settings › General, or Sync agent activity from your computers under Account › Agent activity on the web. That is:

• when you sent prompts, and to which project, named by its git remote
• the branches, and the session titles if you sync those too
• the split Spindle suggests, if there is one

Your prompts and commits never reach Spindle. With the git remote and the time, an agent that has the project at hand reads your commits from that time itself. Without activity sync, the agent sees your time but nothing from your agents’ sessions. See Suggestions on the web.

Everything the agent gets goes to that agent’s provider, like the rest of your conversation with it.

Take back a description

You can ask the agent to undo its last descriptions, such as “undo that”. It takes back its last change, for a day, and leaves entries you changed since as they are.

New entries and changes to times, projects or splits aren’t saved until you add them. See Reviewing time your agent proposes.

Sign an agent out

Every agent you connect is listed under Account › Where you’re signed in on the web, with the workspace it reaches and whether it reads or also proposes. The desktop apps list them under Signed-in agents in Settings › Agents. Sign out stops the agent at once.

To remove the server from the agent as well:

claude mcp remove --scope user spindle
codex mcp remove spindle

Good to know

• If your organization’s trial or plan has ended and it is read-only, agents can still read your time and stop the timer, but not change anything else.
• The commands, and what the server offers agents, are also in Connecting your agents in Spindle’s code.