Birta

Connect the ChatGPT desktop app

The ChatGPT desktop app can run Birta as a local MCP server. It shares this MCP configuration with Codex on the same host, but ChatGPT on the web does not read it.

  1. 1. Add the local MCP server

    Open Settings → MCP servers → Add server. Enter Birta as the name, choose STDIO, and use this command:

    npx -y @birta/cli mcp

    Save the server, then restart the desktop app. You need Node.js 20 or newer; the package is fetched when the server starts, so there is no global installation.

  2. 2. Ask it for something, then confirm

    There is no sign-in step first. Ask the desktop app to make you a site or to list your Birta projects. The first request comes back with a link (and a short code) instead of a result — open the link, sign in with the one-time code sent to your email, and confirm access.

    Then ask the desktop app again — the request that was refused runs once access is confirmed. This installation stays authorized afterwards: there is no key to copy and nothing to paste back.

    Prefer to get it out of the way first? This command shows the same link and waits for your confirmation:

    npx -y @birta/cli login

  3. 3. How it works

    You never list files for ChatGPT. It names two folders on your computer — your project and, if the site is built, the built site — and hands them over as they are. They go into your site's draft: nothing on your live site changes, and visitors keep seeing the version you published last.

    ChatGPT then gives you the draft's own address. Open it, and mark what you want changed straight on the page. Tell ChatGPT you have left remarks, it makes the changes on your computer and hands the folders over again — the draft keeps the same address, so you just refresh the page you already have open.

    Go round as many times as you like. When it looks right, say so — ChatGPT publishes the draft, and only then does your site address start serving it. If a check fails, nothing is published: you are told everything that is in the way at once, and the draft stays as it was.

  4. 4. Use it and check

    In the composer, type /mcp to check that the server is connected, then ask ChatGPT to list your Birta projects. If it can see them, the connection is ready.