How to Connect Claude Desktop (MCP)?

Want to ask “which excavators are free next week?” or “what does customer Acme owe?” without opening the app? The AI Integration tab connects Claude Desktop to your Rentablez account using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once set up, you can query your live rental data in plain language, right inside Claude Desktop.

What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets a desktop AI assistant talk to your business apps in a secure, structured way. Rentablez exposes a small set of tools over MCP so Claude Desktop can look up your assets, orders, customers, and service records on demand.

This integration is built specifically for the Claude Desktop app. It is not a generic connector for ChatGPT or custom agents. Looking to power the in-app Rentablez chatbot with your own Anthropic key instead? That’s a different setting — see the Claude (Anthropic) tab under Settings → Integrations.

Before You Start

  • You’ll need Settings Write permission. Without it, the Generate Config button is disabled.
  • Install the Claude Desktop app on your computer.
  • Node.js must be available on your machine — the config launches the MCP connection with npx.

Generate Your Connection Config

Step 1 — Open the AI Integration page

Go to Settings → Integrations → AI Integration. You’ll see the Claude Desktop (MCP) card, which lists the data areas it can reach: Assets, Orders, Customers, and Service & Repair.

Step 2 — Generate the config

Click Generate Config. Rentablez mints a secure connection token for your workspace and builds a ready-to-use claude_desktop_config.json snippet.

Step 3 — Copy the JSON

Use the Copy button on the generated claude_desktop_config.json block to copy the full configuration to your clipboard.

Keep the token private. The snippet contains an authorization token tied to your workspace. Anyone who has it can query your data through Claude Desktop. Click Generate Config again any time to mint a fresh token.

Add It to Claude Desktop

The page shows these Setup Instructions. Follow them in order:

  1. Click Generate Config to create your connection token.
  2. Copy the generated JSON configuration.
  3. Open Claude Desktop settings and go to the MCP Servers configuration — or edit claude_desktop_config.json directly.
  4. Paste the configuration and save.
  5. Restart Claude Desktop. Your Rentablez tools appear automatically.

Once Claude Desktop restarts, the tools it received from Rentablez are ready to use, and you can start asking questions about your rental data.

Need help on the Claude Desktop side? The page links out to the official Claude Desktop MCP setup guide at modelcontextprotocol.io.

What Can You Ask?

After connecting, Claude Desktop can query these areas of your Rentablez account in natural language:

AreaExample question
Assets”Which cameras are available this weekend?”
Orders”What’s the status of order 1042?”
Customers”Show me Acme Rentals’ recent orders.”
Service & Repair”Any open maintenance jobs on the forklifts?”

The exact list of tools Claude receives is shown under Available Tools on the page after you generate the config.

You’re All Set

You’ve connected Claude Desktop to Rentablez over MCP. Now you can pull up asset availability, order status, customer details, and maintenance info by simply asking — no clicking through screens required.