{"id":13297,"date":"2026-10-02T15:59:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/kb-article\/the-ai-connector\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T18:49:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:49:21","slug":"the-ai-connector","status":"publish","type":"kb_article","link":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/kb-article\/the-ai-connector\/","title":{"rendered":"The AI Connector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The AI Connector is an optional plugin for <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>8, from Calico Pie, that lets Claude or another compatible AI assistant work directly with your project. You ask questions or give instructions in plain English; the assistant turns them into short scripts that run through <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>&#8216;s own plugin interface, so it never edits the project file directly. Calico Pie&#8217;s instructions currently cover Claude Desktop on Windows only.<\/p>\n<h2>What It Can Do<\/h2>\n<p>Each session is either read-only or read-write, chosen before you start it.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Read-only<\/strong> (the default): the assistant can look up, count, list and cross-reference anything in the project, including people, families, facts, places, relationships, citations and your own custom fact types. &#8220;Give me an overview of this project&#8221; is a good first question. It can also search the <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>8 help.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Read-write<\/strong>: it can also create, edit and delete records, facts, citations and notes, so it can transcribe a certificate into a person&#8217;s record with a proper citation, for example, or work through inconsistent names with you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Separately, you can ask it to write a standalone plugin, such as a report or a query, which it hands back for you to check and install yourself. Any line that uses something a live session is not allowed to do, such as reading or writing files, is marked <code>-- FLAGGED<\/code>. Read those lines before installing.<\/p>\n<h2>Staying in Control<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The assistant can only reach your project while a session is running. You start the session from the plugin in <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>, and <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>&#8216;s main window is disabled until it stops.<\/li>\n<li>A session ends when you click <em>Stop<\/em>, or by itself after a set number of minutes with no activity (five by default).<\/li>\n<li>In a read-write session every change is logged in a Research Note in the project, so you can see what was changed and when. Changes can be undone when the session ends, and Ctrl-Z works as usual.<\/li>\n<li>Calico Pie strongly recommend a full project backup before letting the assistant make significant changes. So do we.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What You Need<\/h2>\n<p>An account with the AI service. For Claude a free account is enough to start with, though some features may need a paid plan. Anything the assistant reads from your project is sent to that service, so check its privacy terms. The part of the connector that runs on your PC only goes online when you ask it to fetch an updated copy of the <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>8 help.<\/p>\n<h2>Setting It Up<\/h2>\n<p>There are two parts: an extension installed into Claude Desktop, and the AI Connector plugin, installed into <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span>8 in the usual way. The downloads and step-by-step instructions are on Calico Pie&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.family-historian.co.uk\/ai-connector\">AI Connector<\/a> page.<\/p>\n<p>To use it, open your project, run the AI Connector plugin from <a href=\"#!\" class=\"cs_tooltip\" fhugtt=\"This is the menu across the top of the main Family Historian windows. The &gt; denotes a submenu\">Tools&nbsp&gt;&nbspPlugins<\/a>, choose read-only or read-write and click <em>Start<\/em>. Then ask your questions in Claude Desktop. In the first message of a conversation it helps to tell Claude to use the Family Historian MCP, so that it works from your project rather than from general knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>See also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.family-historian.co.uk\/help\/fh8\/aiconnector.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AI Connector<\/a> in the <span class=\"fh\" style=\"font-size: 17px !important; line-height: 21.4286px !important;\">\u0192<span style=\"color:#73B262; font-weight: bold;\">h<\/span><\/span> help, and <a href=\"\/kb\/kb-article\/using-plugins-in-version-8\/\">Using Plugins in Version 8<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","fh_version":[826],"skill_level":[18,17],"topic":[59,72],"class_list":["post-13297","kb_article","type-kb_article","status-publish","hentry","fh_version-v8","skill_level-advanced","skill_level-intermediate","topic-plugins","topic-using-plugins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb_article\/13297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kb_article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/kb_article"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"fh_version","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fh_version?post=13297"},{"taxonomy":"skill_level","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/skill_level?post=13297"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fhug.org.uk\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=13297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}