Connect your own AI assistant to Giraffe through the Giraffe MCP, and it can work inside your live project. Ask it to check a site's yield, change a usage, or pull data from another tool into your plan, and it makes the change in the project you have open. Your assistant keeps everything else it can reach, like your files, email, and other connectors, so it can bring that context into your feasibility work.
The Giraffe MCP is in beta. Its tools and setup steps change as we test and improve it. Reach out to your account team to try it out!
What an MCP is
MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It's an open standard that lets an AI assistant connect to outside tools and data. An MCP server is a plug-in for your AI assistant. It tells the assistant which actions it can take in another product, and carries out those actions when the assistant asks.
The Giraffe MCP server is that plug-in for Giraffe. Add it to your AI assistant, and the assistant can read and change the Giraffe project open in your browser, alongside every other tool it already uses.
AI assistants that work with the Giraffe MCP
Set up the Giraffe MCP once in each AI assistant you use. Each assistant has its own setup steps:
Connect Claude to Giraffe, in claude.ai or Claude Code.
Connect Microsoft Copilot Cowork to Giraffe via MCP, with the Giraffe plugin for Copilot.
Connect GitHub Copilot to Giraffe via MCP, by adding Giraffe as an MCP server.
When to use the Giraffe MCP instead of Giraffe AI
Use the Giraffe MCP when your work reaches outside Giraffe. Giraffe AI lives inside Giraffe and works with your project. The Giraffe MCP brings your project to the AI assistant you already use, along with everything else that assistant can reach.
Work in the interface you already know. Your assistant's own app gives you a full-size chat, conversation history, file uploads, and the habits you've already built.
Combine Giraffe with your other tools. Your assistant can pull numbers from a spreadsheet, read a planning PDF, or check an email thread, then apply what it finds to your site in Giraffe.
Keep your own setup. Your assistant keeps your other connectors, files, and saved instructions, so you don't repeat context for each project.
Build Giraffe apps. A coding assistant can write your app's code and test it against your live project in the same conversation.
Call your apps' tools. Your assistant can use tools that your own Giraffe apps advertise.
Use Giraffe AI when you want a quick answer or change inside Giraffe, with nothing to install.
What the Giraffe MCP does
The Giraffe MCP lets your AI assistant work in two ways: directly with Giraffe, and through the tools your Giraffe apps offer. Your assistant can also combine either one with the other connectors and files it already uses.
🚨 Warning: Your AI assistant makes real changes to your project through the Giraffe SDK. Try it on a copy of a project first.
Work directly with Giraffe
Through the Giraffe MCP, your AI assistant can run the same commands a Giraffe app can run, about 170 in all. It looks up each command in the SDK docs before it runs it. Your assistant can:
Read your project, including the boundary, drawn geometries, usages, levels, and areas.
Draw, edit, and delete geometries and change their properties and usages.
Change what you see without saving anything, like zooming the map, selecting or highlighting geometries, showing a temporary layer, or opening a popup.
Change one item in a larger record, like a single usage, and check first that nobody else changed it.
What your assistant can't change
Your AI assistant can only change the Giraffe project it's working in. The Giraffe MCP blocks commands that reach anything else, so a wrong request can't affect other people's work. Your assistant can't:
Change, create, or copy other projects or templates.
Edit or create layers in your workspace's shared layer library. It can add an existing layer from a content pack to your project.
Publish, change, or delete the apps your workspace hosts.
Change sharing or workspace settings.
Read the credentials your workspace shares with apps.
Add a content pack to your project. Your assistant can list a pack's contents and ask you to add the pack in Giraffe.
If you ask for one of these, your assistant tells you the command is withheld and continues without it.
Use tools from your Giraffe apps
Giraffe apps can offer their own tools to your AI assistant through the Giraffe MCP. Your assistant lists the tools from every app open in your project and calls the one it needs. For example, a stormwater app can offer a tool that screens the selected parcel against flood, wetland, and water quality layers. An app offers tools only when its developer has set it up to advertise them. Your assistant only sees an app's tools while that app is open in a panel with its MCP connection switched on. Each app's connection starts off until you turn it on in that app.
Combine Giraffe with your other tools
Your AI assistant keeps every other connector and file it can reach. In one request, it can read a planning PDF, pull rents from a spreadsheet, apply the controls to your massing in Giraffe, and write the results back to your spreadsheet.
Your assistant acts as you, in the browser tab where your project is open. It can only do what you can already do in that project. The tools it can use change as the Giraffe MCP develops.