Set up your agent
Choose the agent you use: its page has the one thing to do, then the other ways, then what the agent needs.
Which agent do you use?
An agent that runs commands on your computer, from its own terminal: one line sets it up.
- Claude Code
- Codex
- Cursor
- VS Code, with GitHub Copilot
- Windsurf, now Devin Desktop
- Gemini CLI
A chat app: you add Basemodo in its settings.
- claude.ai, also in the Claude mobile app
- Claude Desktop
- ChatGPT
Another agent with a terminal (OpenCode, Antigravity, Copilot CLI) is set up as the first ones are: run the install line in your terminal. Any other chat app that speaks MCP over HTTP with OAuth connects to the Remote MCP, https://mcp.basemodo.com. It finds Basemodo's sign-in from the MCP's first answer and registers itself, so there is no client ID or secret to create.
The ways in
Each agent's page recommends one way, and lists the others under Other ways:
- The install line, for an agent with a terminal: it installs the
basemodocommand and runsbasemodo setup, which teaches your agents Basemodo with its Skills and signs you in. The agent then runs the CLI and deploys the folder it works in. - The Plugin, for a chat app that takes plugins: Basemodo's Skills and its Remote MCP in one install, from basemodocom/agent.
- The Remote MCP, at
https://mcp.basemodo.com: every command of the CLI as a tool, on Basemodo's servers, with nothing to install. Itsdeploytakes a GitHub repository. - The local MCP,
basemodo mcp: the same tools on your computer, deploying a folder.
Remote vs local compares the four. Add one MCP to a client, never both: one way per client.
Signing in: the Agent Grant
The first time your agent connects to the Remote MCP, your browser opens on basemodo.com and asks you to approve it, naming the agent and the address it returns to. Approve only an agent you just connected yourself.
Approving it creates an Agent Grant: the agent can do everything you can do with the CLI, as you, and nothing more. The agent is listed under Agents on the Devices page, where revoking it signs it out at once. A grant also ends when the agent goes unused for 30 days. While you use it, the client renews its access by itself, every hour, without asking you.
An agent that runs the CLI, or the local MCP, uses the CLI's sign-in instead, from basemodo login, which basemodo setup starts for you.
What the MCP can do
Each command of the CLI is a tool of the same name (env set is env_set), with the same arguments, answering what the command prints with --json. Tools lists them all, each with its own page: its arguments, whether it only reads (clients may run those without asking you) or changes things, and how it differs on the Remote MCP. A few commands stay in the terminal, like basemodo login.
The Remote MCP has no folder of yours, so it differs in two ways. Tools that act on an App take the App's name (app). deploy takes a GitHub repository (repository, as owner/repo, with branch and subdir if needed) instead of a folder: the App is linked to the repository, its latest commit deployed, and every later push deploys too, as in Deploying from GitHub. Basemodo's GitHub App must be able to read the repository; when it cannot, the error's fix is the link to install it.
The MCP also serves the Guide, the resource basemodo://guide: the commands, the manifest and the identity headers in one page, written for agents. For more, the tool docs reads any page of this documentation. Troubleshooting helps when a sign-in does not finish.