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Claude Design Connector

SetForth is a destination you can send a design to from Claude. You design something in Claude, say "send this to SetForth", and it arrives in the project you choose as an initiative with the design files attached, ready to plan and build.

The connector is a remote MCP server. Claude connects to it over OAuth, so you sign in to SetForth once and Claude sends designs on your behalf from then on. It works from any Claude surface that supports custom connectors.

What the Connector Does

Sending a design creates one thing in SetForth: an initiative in the project you picked, in the planning state, with the design's files stored on it and embedded in its description.

Nothing runs on arrival. No agent starts, no sandbox spins up, and no code is touched. The initiative waits until a person opens it in SetForth, and planning begins there, with the design already in front of the planning agent. That is deliberate: a design showing up should never spend your credits or start work you have not looked at.

Claude gets a link back to the new initiative, so you can open it straight from the conversation.

What Data the Connector Accesses

The connector is narrow on purpose. It exposes three tools and nothing else. It cannot read your code, your tasks, your pull requests, or your documents.

list_projects reads the projects you can see in your SetForth organization, and returns each one's id and name. Claude uses this to ask you which project the design should go to. It reads nothing else about a project and changes nothing.

send_design creates an initiative in the project you name, from a title, a written summary, and the design's files. It writes only that initiative and its files. It cannot modify or delete anything that already exists.

get_design_upload_url returns a short-lived link for uploading one design file to the project you name, for files too large to send inline. It writes only that one file, and cannot read, change, or delete anything that already exists.

Every tool acts as you, under your own SetForth permissions. If you cannot write to a project, neither can Claude on your behalf. The connector holds no standing access to your Claude account and cannot read your conversations: data moves one way, from Claude to SetForth, and only when you ask it to.

What gets stored. The title and summary Claude writes, and the design files themselves. Files are stored as project documents on the new initiative, the same way an upload in the SetForth dashboard is stored, and they are visible to the people in your organization who can see that project.

A file uploaded through get_design_upload_url that is never sent as part of a design is deleted within a day of being uploaded, along with any record of it. Sending is what makes a file yours to keep, so a conversation you abandon halfway leaves nothing behind.

The connector accepts HTML, plain text, Markdown, JSON, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, and PDF, up to 20 files per design, 5 MB per file, and 20 MB in total. HTML is stored as plain text so that opening a design file can never run a script. For how SetForth handles data generally, see our Privacy Policy.

Connecting the Connector

You need a SetForth account with access to at least one project, and a Claude account. Custom connectors are available on every Claude plan, though the Free plan allows only one at a time.

The SetForth connector URL is:

https://api.setforth.app/mcp/design

Add it in Claude:

  1. Open Customize, then Connectors.
  2. Choose Add next to Custom connectors.
  3. Paste the connector URL above and confirm.
  4. Claude opens a SetForth sign-in window. Sign in.
  5. Pick the SetForth organization the connector should work in, and approve the request.
  6. The connector shows as connected, with list_projects, send_design, and get_design_upload_url listed as its tools.

The organization you pick in step 5 is the one the connector can reach, and it is the only one. To send designs to a project in a different organization, remove the connector and add it again, choosing that organization instead.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an owner can add the connector once for everyone from Settings, then Connectors, under the organization's connectors. Each person still signs in to SetForth themselves the first time they use it, so designs always arrive under their own name and their own permissions.

You only do this once. Claude keeps the connection until you remove it, which you can do at any time from the same Connectors screen. Removing it revokes Claude's access immediately; designs already sent stay in SetForth, because they are yours.

Example Prompts

Once the connector is on, ask for it in plain language. A few that work well:

  • "Send this design to SetForth so we can build it."
  • "Which projects do I have in SetForth?"
  • "Send this to the Marketing Site project in SetForth. Call it Pricing Page Refresh, and note that the comparison table needs to work on mobile."
  • "Send the last three screens to SetForth as one initiative, and include the copy I wrote for each."
  • "Push this landing page to SetForth and summarize the animation behavior so whoever builds it knows what I meant."
  • "Send this to SetForth, and mention that the color tokens should come from the existing design system rather than the hex values in the file."

Two things worth doing in the prompt. Name the project if you know it, and say what you want built rather than only what the design looks like. The summary Claude writes is what the planning agent reads first, so intent and constraints carry further than a description of the pixels.

After a Design Arrives

Open SetForth and go to the project you sent to. The new initiative appears in the list with a From Design badge, so you can tell at a glance which work arrived from Claude rather than being written by hand.

Open it and planning starts, with the design files already in context. From there it is an ordinary SetForth initiative: agree on the plan, let the epics and tasks get created, and agents pick up the work and open pull requests.

If Something Goes Wrong

Claude cannot connect. Check the URL is exactly the connector URL above, with no trailing slash or extra path. If the sign-in window opens but never finishes, make sure pop-ups are allowed for the Claude tab.

SetForth says it could not complete the request for that project. The most common cause is a project id that did not come from list_projects, or a project you do not have write access to. Ask Claude to list your projects again and pick from the result.

A file was refused. The connector accepts the file types listed above only, and refuses anything larger than the per file or total limits. Claude reports the specific reason, so ask it what the file was and try again without it.

Nothing shows up in SetForth. Confirm you are looking at the right project, and that you are signed in to the same SetForth organization the connector authorized. The connector can only reach projects in that one organization.