Claude (desktop and web)

Claude connects to Catena through a custom MCP connector (MCP stands for Model Context Protocol). The connector acts as one agent in your organization. It can read balances, transactions, counterparties, and intents, and it can submit payments, as far as that agent's policy allows.

In Claude Desktop, we recommend Claude Cowork, because Claude chat does not support Catena's payment tools (such as send and transfer).

If you'd like to use Claude Code instead, which runs in a terminal and connects with the CLI, see Claude Code.

Requirements

You'll need the operator or admin role in the Catena organization the connector will act in.

Connect Claude

In Claude, click Customize, then select Connectors.
Select Add custom connector.
Enter the name Catena and our server URL:
Text
```
https://api.catena.com/mcp
```
Click Connect. Sign in to Catena, then choose the organization (live or sandbox) and the agent the connector acts as.

Test the connection

To check that everything is working, ask Claude: "Which Catena agent are you, and what can you do?" Claude will call whoami and get_policy to answer.

Limitations

There are a few things to keep in mind when you use the connector:

The connector holds no signing key, so every payment will wait for an admin, who approves and signs it in the console. See Approvals.
The connector cannot pay x402 or MPP endpoints. For those, we recommend Claude Code with the CLI.
Claude can ask you to confirm before it calls a tool. That confirmation comes from Claude and is separate from Catena approvals.

Disconnect

To disconnect, ask Claude to run the unlink tool. Alternatively, you can remove the connector under Customize then Connectors, and unlink the agent in the Catena console.