# Connect an AI assistant

- **MCP resource:** rdmbench://help/assistants
- **Version:** 0.2.0
- **Runs on:** macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple silicon or Intel
- **Needs:** An Enttec DMX USB Pro with its DMX/RDM firmware (major version 2)
- **Price:** Free

An AI assistant on this computer, such as Claude, can read what the
bench has saved and answer questions about your fixtures: what is
wrong with one, what changed since its last visit, what was done to it
last time. While RDMBench is connected to the line, it can also scan,
watch and load test fixtures through the app. What it can do, and what
to ask it, is in [Ask an assistant about a fixture](/help/ask-assistant/).

Setting it up takes one click per assistant. You never edit a
configuration file.

## Connecting one

Open Settings (⌘,) *(macOS)* and choose **AI
Assistant**. Each assistant installed on this computer has a row:

- **Claude Desktop**: **Connect** installs the RDMBench extension.
  Claude Desktop asks you to confirm.
- **Cursor** and **Visual Studio Code**: **Connect** opens the
  assistant to add RDMBench, and it asks you to confirm.
- **Claude Code**: **Connect** adds RDMBench to your Claude Code
  settings. Then run `claude` in a terminal and ask your question.
- **Other assistant**: **Show Configuration…** gives a snippet to paste
  into any assistant that takes MCP servers, for one not listed here.

The row says **Connected** once it is done, and the pane suggests a
first question to ask.

After your first report, if an assistant is installed and none is
connected, the bench offers the setup once above the report. **Set
Up…** opens the same pane; **Not Now** does not ask again.

## Update and disconnect

**Update** appears when the assistant is connected to another copy of
RDMBench, for example one you have since replaced or moved. Click it
to connect the assistant to this copy.

**Disconnect** removes RDMBench from the assistant. Claude Desktop is
the exception: an extension can only be removed in Claude Desktop
itself, in its Settings under Extensions, and the bench tells you so.

## What leaves the computer

Connecting sends nothing anywhere. The assistant reads the bench's
saved reports, sessions and notes on this computer, and only when you
ask it something. What it reads then goes to the assistant's provider
as part of your conversation, as anything else you ask it does.

## Assistants on other computers

Under **Advanced**, **Also let assistants on other computers connect**
lets an assistant on another machine on your network reach this bench,
at the address the pane shows. Turn it on only on a network you trust:
anyone on that network can then use the bench, load tests included,
with no password. It takes effect the next time you connect to the
line.