Quickstart: Claude Desktop

This walks you from zero to a working Pipeworx call in Claude Desktop in under a minute.

1. Open the config file

The config file lives at:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

If the file doesn’t exist, create it.

2. Add Pipeworx

Open the file and add the pipeworx entry to mcpServers. If mcpServers doesn’t exist yet, the whole file looks like:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

If you already have other MCP servers, just add pipeworx alongside them.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Fully quit Claude (Cmd+Q on macOS) and reopen. The MCP server connects on startup.

4. Verify

In a new chat, click the 🔧 tools indicator in the input area. You should see Pipeworx listed. Then ask something:

“What’s the current 30-year mortgage rate?”

Claude will call fred_get_series (or use ask_pipeworx) and return the live value from FRED. First call works without an API key — anonymous tier gets 50 calls/day.

What you just enabled

Adding that one URL gave Claude access to:

  • 1,007 tools across 295 data sources
  • Meta-tools like ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, resolve_entity, compare_entities
  • 12 prompt playbooks (research_public_company, drug_safety_profile, etc.)
  • 15 resource templates for citable URIs

The gateway handles tool selection so Claude doesn’t need to load 1,000 definitions into context — see context tax for why.

Next steps

  • Try a recipe — Research a public company
  • Use a vertical — Connect with a domain filter: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp?vertical=housing
  • Bring your own keys — For paid data sources (ATTOM, Altos), pass via X-API-Key header

Troubleshooting

Tools indicator shows nothing. Check the config file path — Claude is strict about location. Run cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json to verify.

“Connection failed.” Test the gateway directly:

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'

You should see ~20 tools listed.

Rate-limited. Anonymous is 50 calls/day. Sign up for 2,000/day.

Last reviewed May 8, 2026