Using temper from Claude Desktop (and claude.ai)

[observed — 2026-08-01]

Two independent things, in this order. Neither implies the other, and the common failure is doing
only the second and wondering why Claude cannot see anything.

Connect the MCP server — gives Claude access to your knowledge base.

Install the skill — teaches Claude how to use it well.

This guide lives here, not inside the skill bundle, deliberately: it is what you read before you
have the skill, and it is addressed to you rather than to the agent. A copy of it shipped inside the
bundle for a while, where it was both duplicated and read by an agent as if it were instructions.

1. Connect the MCP server

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, with the URL:

https://temperkb.io/mcp

Authentication is OAuth via Auth0 and happens on first connect — Claude will prompt you.

Do not use claude_desktop_config.json for this. That file configures local, stdio MCP
servers. Claude Desktop will not connect to a remote server declared there, so a "url" entry
in mcpServers silently does nothing — it looks configured and never connects. This guide
previously said to do exactly that; it was wrong.

Once connected you get:

Surface	What it is
Resources panel (attachment icon)	Browse and attach documents directly. Content is injected before the model runs — no tool call, no tool-call tokens
Tools	`search`, `list_resources`, `create_resource`, and the rest, called during conversation

Resource URIs are temper://resources/{id}, temper://resources/{id}/content, and
temper://contexts/{ref}/resources — where {ref} is @owner/slug or a UUID. Bare context names
are not accepted.

2. Install the skill

The connector gives Claude access. The skill gives it the working discipline: which doc types
exist, how goals and tasks are structured, the session-note shape, and the traps (a capped list read
as a complete one; an abbreviated UUID that resolves to nothing).

Download temper-skill-v<version>.zip from the
latest release.

Customize → Skills → +, and upload the zip.

The bundle carries a VERSION file at its root — that is how you tell which one you uploaded, since
the Skills list shows only the skill name.

Verifying what you downloaded

Each release publishes a .sha256 sidecar beside the zip, and the zip carries a GitHub build-
provenance attestation:

The bundle deliberately carries no per-file manifest, unlike the CLI archives. Manifests exist so
install.sh can verify each extracted file before an atomic swap; nothing installs this bundle, so
there is nothing for one to gate. See
the release guide for the CLI side.

Skills do not sync between surfaces

A skill uploaded to Claude Desktop / claude.ai is not available in the API or in Claude Code, and
vice versa. Each surface needs its own upload. Claude Code users want the CLI packaging instead
(temper skill install), which is a different tree — it speaks temper … commands rather than tool
calls.

Where things live


Skill bundle source	`agent-skills/temper-knowledge-base/` (a committed projection — see the `generated-artifacts` skill)
Build it locally	`cargo make skill-package` → `dist/temper-skill-v<version>.zip`
Tool reference	`knowledge-base.md` inside the bundle
Doc types + frontmatter	`references/frontmatter.md` inside the bundle (generated from the server's own schemas)

Using temper from Claude Desktop (and claude.ai)

1. Connect the MCP server#

2. Install the skill#

Verifying what you downloaded#

Skills do not sync between surfaces#

Where things live#

1. Connect the MCP server

2. Install the skill

Verifying what you downloaded

Skills do not sync between surfaces

Where things live