A few quick questions. I'll come back personally, one company at a time, US and UK.
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Module 6 · 5 lessons · 58 min
Connecting Your Tools
6Connecting Your ToolsModule 6 · OverviewConnecting Your Tools
Module 6
Connecting Your Tools
Give your AI department safe access to where your business lives
Bruno Ashford
The problem
If you copy data into the chat and paste answers back out, you are the slowest part of your own AI.
Bruno Ashford
6.1 Plain English
MCP is a standard plug
Each tool publishes a panel of buttons. Claude can only press those.
Server: the tool's panel of actions
Tools: read, search, draft, update, send
You decide which buttons need approval
Nothing happens outside the panel
Two routes in
How a connection arrives
1claude.ai connectorsAdd in account settings, appear in Claude Code
2claude mcp addTerminal command with the vendor's URL
3/mcpCheck status, sign in, see tools
Scope
Who gets the connection
Scope
Who
Use it for
local
You, this project
Default, testing, client data
project
Team via .mcp.json
Approved shared tools
user
You, all projects
Personal utilities
6.2 Email, calendar, docs
Read, draft, then you send
The rule for the whole module.
Stage 1: read-only triage
Stage 2: drafts in your email client
Sending stays human
Deny rule on send tools
6.3 CRM and spreadsheets
Preview, approve, write
Every change appears as a table before it is saved.
Health report first, read-only
Record, field, old, new, reason
Approve by row number
Log every change
Roofing CRM cleanup (illustrative case)
What a read-only report found
1,140open deals before
612inactive 60+ days
318open deals after
6.4 Web research
Research you can repeat monthly
Public web for facts, your browser for signed-in work.
Link on every fact
claude --chrome for signed-in sites
Save to dated files
Spot-check three sources
6.5 The uncomfortable part
Connecting a tool hands a stranger's software a key to part of your business. Check the key first.
Bruno Ashford
Risk check
Five questions before any connector
1Who built it?Vendor, known project or anonymous
2What data?Clients, money, health, legal
3Can it write?Send, change, delete
4Where are secrets?Env variables, never shared files
5How do we exit?Remove and revoke
Project
Two systems, one workflow
CRM leads become email drafts. Nothing sends itself.
Score both connectors
Connect at local scope
Block send and delete
Measure minutes before and after
Recap
Connect what earns its place, read before you write, and keep the send button in human hands.
Bruno Ashford
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Use ← → to move. The marker highlights text and the pencil draws on the slide; navigation locks while you annotate. Undo removes the last mark, Esc exits.
Give your AI department safe access to the email, calendar, documents, CRM and web research your business actually runs on.
