Getting started

Connect your coding agent

toad setup registers Toad with the coding agents it finds. This page is for doing it by hand, or for clients it doesn’t know.

Toad is one MCP server, started with the command toad mcp. Register it once: every project uses the same server, and each call says which project it is for.

Claude Code, Codex and Pi#

Client	Command
Claude Code	`claude mcp add --scope user toad -- toad mcp`
Codex	`codex mcp add toad -- toad mcp`
Pi	`pi mcp add toad -- toad mcp`

For Pi, also set "requestTimeoutMs": 900000 on Toad’s entry in ~/.pi/agent/mcp.json, so long runs are not cut off.

Any other MCP client#

Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop and the rest take a JSON entry in their MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "toad": { "command": "toad", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

Timeouts#

Toad sends progress every 15 seconds while it tests, so clients that reset their timeout on progress wait for long runs. If yours does not, raise its MCP tool timeout to 15 minutes or more.

Check the connection#

Restart the coding agent, then ask it to “list the Toad tools”. You should see:

get_toad_guide
setup_project
run_project_test
run_web_test and run_cli_test (legacy)

The server also gives the agent a guide on how to write good tests and handle credentials, through the get_toad_guide tool and the toad://guide resource. Most clients pick it up from the server’s instructions. If yours does not, tell the agent: “Call get_toad_guide before using Toad.”