Using Colleag from your AI tools¶
Your coding and AI tools, such as Claude Code or Cursor, can read your organisation's Colleag while you work: the product documentation, the company's processes, your standards and component intelligence. You ask in your editor, and the tool looks the answer up in Colleag instead of guessing.
The connection uses MCP (Model Context Protocol), the open standard these tools use to reach outside systems. Colleag is one such system: the tool signs you in and then calls Colleag's read tools on your behalf.
The idea¶
- Your documentation where the work happens. Firmware, test scripts, a datasheet, a customer reply: the tool can check them against what the product documentation, the standards and the design decisions say.
- You, not a service account. The tool signs in as you and reads exactly what you may read in Colleag, at your permission level and within your work roles. Remove someone in Colleag and their tools stop too.
- Read-only. AI tools cannot change anything in Colleag in this version. Writing, publishing and approving stay in Colleag.
- Your admin decides. AI tool access is off until an admin switches it on, and the admin chooses which kinds of data an AI tool may read. Every call is in the audit trail.
Where answers go
What an AI tool reads from Colleag goes on to that tool's own AI provider, as part of your conversation with it. That is why ERP, shipping, deals and web search are off for AI tools until an admin ticks them.
Before you start¶
- An admin has switched AI tool access on under Settings → AI tool access. See Settings & Admin.
- You know the address. It ends in
/mcp. Until you have connected a tool, it is shown under Settings → Connected accounts, in Connected AI tools, together with the Claude Code command. Admins also see it at the foot of the AI tool access page. If you cannot find it, ask your admin. The pages are there when your Colleag offers connections for AI tools. - Your AI tool supports remote MCP servers with sign-in. Claude Code and Cursor both do.
Connect¶
In a terminal:
claude mcp add --transport http colleag <the address>
Start claude, type /mcp, choose colleag and then Authenticate.
Your browser opens. Approve the connection and sign in with your Colleag
account. Back in Claude Code, /mcp shows colleag as connected, with its
tools.
Open Cursor Settings → MCP and add a server, or add it to
~/.cursor/mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"colleag": { "url": "<the address>" }
}
}
Cursor shows the server with a Login button. Click it, approve the connection and sign in with your Colleag account.
Any tool that can add a remote MCP server over HTTP with sign-in (OAuth) works the same way. Give it the address and sign in with your Colleag account when the browser opens. Your admin can limit which tools may connect.
To check the connection, ask the tool to run whoami on colleag. It answers with your e-mail, your organisation, your level, and the tools you can use.
Ways of working¶
Ask in plain words and name the product when it matters. A few patterns that work well:
| You are … | Ask your tool to … |
|---|---|
| Writing firmware or test code | Check the pin mapping, timing or limits against the product's hardware documents before writing the code, and cite the document. |
| Reviewing a change | Compare the diff with the requirements and design decisions for that part of the product, and list what the change does not cover. |
| Answering a customer or supplier | Find the current revision of the datasheet or declaration and quote the relevant lines. |
| Choosing a component | Search and compare parts with component intelligence and check them against the BOM. |
| Working to a standard | Look up the clause in your organisation's licensed standards, and the process (SOP) that applies to it. |
| Picking up an unfamiliar product | List its documents and baselines and summarise what has changed since the last baseline. |
The tool reads; you decide. Anything that should change in Colleag (a document, a decision, a review) you do in Colleag, or you ask a Colleag colleague in the workspace.
What the tools can read¶
Grouped as the admin sees them. An admin switches groups on and off under Settings → AI tool access.
| Group | On when switched on | What the tool can do |
|---|---|---|
| Product documents and search | Yes | Find products, list and read documents, search, baselines, traceability |
| Company documents | Yes | Shared documents, projects, processes (SOPs), this manual |
| Standards | Yes | Search your organisation's licensed standards and read clauses |
| Component intelligence | Yes | Distributor search, part comparison, BOM analysis |
| Dashboards | Yes | List overview boards |
| ERP reads | No | Articles, BOMs, stock, orders and suppliers from the connected ERP |
| Shipping reads | No | Rates, tracking and landed cost on the connected carrier account |
| Deals | No | The quote-log register |
| Web search | No | Colleag's web search and page fetch (costs credits) |
ERP, shipping and deals also need the connection itself under Settings → Integrations, and your work roles must open them.
When it does not work¶
| The tool says | What it means |
|---|---|
| AI tool access is switched off for this organisation | An admin has not switched it on, or has switched it off. Only whoami answers. |
| This AI tool is not among the organisation's allowed AI tools | Your admin has limited which tools may connect. |
| AI tool access requires at least the … permission level | Your admin has raised the lowest level that may connect. |
| No organisation membership for this identity | You signed in with an account that is not a member, or you have been removed. |
| No product '…' in this organisation | The product does not exist, is not yours, or your admin has limited AI tools to other products. |
| Rate limit … retry in … s | Too many calls in a minute. Wait and try again. |
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