Getting started

What you need

• Woodentable on your PATH. The download pages show how for each system.
• An agent that speaks MCP, the Model Context Protocol, such as Claude Code.

I. Accept the licence, once

woodentable

The first time, it shows a short notice and asks you to accept the licence agreement: type a and press Enter, or v to read it first. You're then at its console; type exit to leave.

Your agent starts Woodentable without a terminal, where it can't ask, so this has to be done once first.

II. Connect your agent

For Claude Code:

claude mcp add woodentable -- woodentable serve -name woodentable

Other clients take an entry like this in their MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "woodentable": {
      "command": "woodentable",
      "args": ["serve", "-name", "woodentable"]
    }
  }
}

-name names the server, and the catalog of files it keeps. Use the same name each time, so what one run builds is there for the next.

III. Check it's connected

In Claude Code, /mcp lists woodentable as connected. Then ask your agent what it can do in Woodentable: it will look, and tell you.

What your agent gets

One tool, tcl_workspace. Your agent writes a short Tcl script and Woodentable runs it in a sandbox: a safe interpreter that sees only the files you give it, and can't reach the rest of your disk or the network unless a tool you've added allows it.

With nothing mounted, it sees two folders: /usr, holding the guides your agent reads to learn the sandbox, and /var, with scratch space for the session. You can look for yourself:

woodentable -sandbox -eval 'puts [glob /*]'

-sandbox runs a script in the same sandbox your agent gets, so you can try anything it would do.

Next

• Give it files to read and search.
• Add other servers, such as a browser.
• Run a local model with the same files and tools.
• Write your own tools, or have your agent write them.

Go deeper with the built-in guides:

woodentable help serve
woodentable help usage