AI assistants (MCP)
AI assistants (MCP)
Texpile runs a local MCP server, so an AI assistant can see what you are working on and drive the editor. It is off until you turn it on.
- Setting
- Preferences › MCP server Preferences opens from the start screen, and from File › Preferences… once a folder is open.
Setting it up
Preferences shows a ready-made command for Claude Code and a config entry for Codex, with the real port filled in.
claude mcp add --transport http texpile http://127.0.0.1:PORT
[mcp_servers.texpile]
url = "http://127.0.0.1:PORT"
What an assistant can do
- Read the editor state: the open file, the current view, and the selection.
- Read content you have typed but not saved yet.
- Read the current compile errors and warnings.
- Open a file, show a diff, or switch between the visual, source, and diff views.
- Show a given source line in the PDF.
- Run a compile.
- Read the review comments, with the line each thread sits on now.
- Reply to a thread, resolve it, or re-attach it to new text after an edit.
- Leave review comments of its own. The author shown is the name the assistant gives, not yours.
None of these edit your files. The comment tools write only the comment log in the .texpile folder. The server is reachable only from your own computer, and only the host of a shared session has it. What your assistant does with what it reads is between you and your assistant.
Comments and assistants
Comments are pinned to the text they quote, so an assistant that rewrites a commented sentence with its own file tools would leave the thread without a place. With the comment tools it can read the threads on a file before editing, reply with what it changed and resolve the thread, or re-attach the thread to the new wording. A thread whose text is gone for good stays in the panel as detached, with the reply explaining why. A thread whose surrounding words changed is reported as weak, so the assistant checks it is on the sentence meant before acting on it.