How to connect Claude to your project board with MCP

To connect Claude to a fenbs board, run claude mcp add --transport http fenbs https://fenbs.ai/api/mcp in your terminal, then run /mcp inside Claude Code and choose fenbs to finish connecting. In Claude on the web, add fenbs.ai as a connector in your settings instead. Either way, Claude works the board through a token that can never do more than you can, and every change it makes is recorded under its name. The full walk-through follows.

Before you start

• A fenbs board. If you do not have one, register; there is nothing to set up, the board is there when you open fenbs.
• Claude Code installed, or a Claude account on the web.
• Two minutes.

It helps to have a few real tasks on the board first, so that Claude’s first answer is about your work. Add many, next to + New task, will take a pasted list.

Step 1: issue a token for Claude

In fenbs, open Settings and find Connect an AI assistant.

1. Name it for what it is: “Claude”. This is the name that appears in History against everything it does.
2. Tick the scopes it should have: read the board, add and change tasks, comment. For a first connection, read only is a sensible start.
3. Issue the token and copy it there and then. It is shown once and cannot be read back. If you lose it, revoke it and issue another.

The token acts as you and inherits your role on the board. The scopes narrow it further. Both gates apply and the narrower one wins, so a token can never do something its owner could not.

Step 2: add the fenbs MCP server to Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http fenbs https://fenbs.ai/api/mcp

This tells Claude Code that there is an MCP server called fenbs at that address, reached over HTTP. It is a standard MCP endpoint: no vendor SDK, no plugin to install.

Step 3: finish connecting

Start Claude Code, run /mcp, and choose fenbs. The connection guide describes this as the whole setup. The same panel in fenbs Settings that issued your token also shows the exact command for your board’s endpoint, so you can copy it from there rather than typing it.

$ claude
> /mcp

Using Claude on the web instead

Add fenbs.ai as a connector in your Claude settings. You will be asked to sign in to fenbs and approve the connection.

Step 4: ask who it is

The first thing Claude should call is fenbs_whoami. It answers who Claude is acting as and what it may do on the board, which is the question to settle before changing anything. You do not need to name the tool; ask in plain words.

> what is on the fenbs.ai board?

  fenbs_whoami       → Editor on fenbs.ai
  fenbs_list_items   → 4 tasks

  In Progress  WEB-008  Board drag-and-drop between lanes        P1
  Next Up      WEB-006  MCP returns the missing permission       P1
  To Do        WEB-004  Dark mode tokens leak on the drawer      P2
  Completed    WEB-002  Refs must never be reused after a delete P2

Step 5: hand it some work

Once Claude has a token with write and comment ticked, you can ask it to change the board.

> move WEB-004 to doing and note that it is the drawer only

  fenbs_update_item  → WEB-004 backlog → doing
  fenbs_comment      → posted

  Done. WEB-004 is now In Progress.

The sentence that makes the whole arrangement worthwhile is “take the next thing in Next Up”. Claude reads the task, works out the detail, does the job, moves the card, and writes on the card in a few plain lines what it actually did.

The tools Claude gets

• fenbs_whoami — who am I, and my role on every board. Call this first.
• fenbs_list_boards — boards you are a member of.
• fenbs_list_items — tasks on a board, filtered by lane, kind, assignee or free text.
• fenbs_get_item — one task and its comments, by ref.
• fenbs_create_item — add a task.
• fenbs_update_item — change lane, title, note or priority.
• fenbs_comment — comment on a task.
• fenbs_search — search across every board you can see.

In the tool names a task is called an item. The two words mean the same thing. Refs are matched on their digits, so if a task’s kind has changed and BU-009 now calls itself FE-009, the old ref still finds it.

The product guide at /llms.txt describes two more, for AI context: fenbs_get_context and fenbs_add_context_note. AI context is what Claude should know before touching your work, kept on the board so that any assistant you connect reads the same notes.

When Claude is told no

If Claude tries something its token or your role does not allow, the tool returns a readable refusal, not an error. It names the missing permission and the role.

> close CLK-002 on the showroom board

  fenbs_update_item  → refused

  I can't move that one — I'm only a Viewer on Clerkenwell
  Showroom. Ask whoever runs it to widen my
  role if you want me managing that board too.

That is the system working. Widen the role or the scopes if the request was reasonable; leave them if not.

If something does not work

• Claude sees no tasks. Ask it who it is acting as. fenbs_whoami shows the role it holds on each board; no role on a board means no access to it.
• Claude can read but not change anything. Check the token’s scopes. A read-only token is refused on every write, by design.
• Claude can change tasks but not move them. Moving tasks between lanes is its own permission. Check your own role on the board; the token cannot exceed it.
• You lost the token. It cannot be shown again. Revoke it and issue a new one.

Taking the key back

Revoke the token from the same Settings panel. It stops at once, you stay signed in, and everything Claude did stays in History under its name. If you move to a different assistant later, that is one revoked token and one new one; the tasks and their history do not move.

AI assistants cost nothing extra on any plan, so connect as many as you need, one token each. Plans are on the pricing page, and how it works covers the rest of the board in five steps.