A common way to connect an AI app to your notes is a token: a long secret you paste into the app's config file. That file is plain text, so any program on your computer can read it. It is easy to commit to a repository by accident, and nothing tells you when another tool starts using the same token.
The Knotpad desktop app for Windows has no token to paste. The first time an AI app connects, Knotpad asks whether to allow it and remembers your answer for that program. The examples use an illustrative customer portal project.
Allow each app once
The prompt says which app is asking and what it will be able to do: read and edit your notes and tasks, starting in the workspace you have open.
- Allow: the app carries on with its request, and does not ask again.
- Don't allow: Knotpad refuses that app until you restart Knotpad, so an app that keeps reconnecting cannot keep opening the prompt.
- No answer: the prompt declines by itself after 20 seconds, and the app's next request asks again.
Only allow an app you just set up. A prompt you did not expect is a reason to press Don't allow.
Set one up
In the desktop app, open Settings, MCP and follow the three steps there: copy the setup prompt into your agent, restart the agent when it asks, then click Allow when Knotpad asks. The prompt holds no password or token, so it is safe to paste anywhere. It works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Antigravity and other agents running on the same computer.
For Claude Desktop, press Add to Claude Desktop instead. One approval covers its Chat, Cowork and Code tabs.
The approval belongs to the program
An app reports its own name, and a name is easy to copy. So Knotpad also asks Windows which program is on the other end of the connection, and ties the approval to that program: its file, its Store package or the company that signed it. The prompt shows what it found, for example claude.exe, signed by Anthropic, PBC.
When a different program connects under a name you already allowed, Knotpad asks again instead of letting it in. The prompt warns you when a program is not signed by its maker, or when Knotpad could not check which program it is. Web pages cannot connect at all: Knotpad refuses requests that come from a browser.
Apps you allowed before version 1.9.26 had no program on record. The first program that connects under that name is recorded without a new prompt, and Knotpad shows you what it recorded so you can revoke it if it looks wrong.
See and remove what you allowed
Under Connected apps, on the same settings page, Knotpad lists everything that can use it on this computer, with when you allowed it and when it last connected. Press Revoke to remove one. It stops working on its next request, and if it connects again, Knotpad asks you again.
What an approval does not cover
- What it may change in a note. Each note's Agents setting still decides that. Allowing an app does not give it Full edit.
- Assistants that connect online. An approval covers the desktop app's connection on this computer. An assistant that connects to your Knotpad account over the internet signs in with that account instead.
- Your computer's files. A program already running under your Windows account could read Knotpad's files directly. The approval decides which apps can use the connection, and stops one app borrowing another's approval.
- What the AI service does with your notes. Knotpad cannot see that. Check the service's own terms.
Keep notes safe from rewrites, or connect your assistant to start.
