Connect an AI assistant

An assistant running on your Mac can answer questions about your meetings. Access is off until you consent. What an assistant reads may leave your Mac through that assistant; check the data boundary first.

Turn access on

Open Settings (⌘,) and select AI Assistants.
Switch on Allow AI assistants to access your meetings.
Read Allow AI assistants to access your meetings?. If you agree, tick I understand that what an assistant reads may leave this Mac. and click Allow Access.
Under Workspaces, turn on each workspace the assistant may use. Every workspace starts off, so until you turn one on the status line reads On. Assistants see no workspaces until you turn one on below.

A workspace you add later stays off until you turn it on here. Turning access off turns every workspace off again.

Connect Claude or Codex

Under Connect your assistant, each supported assistant on this Mac has a row. Claude covers Claude Desktop and Claude Code; Codex covers Codex in the ChatGPT app, in Terminal and in your editor.

Click Connect in the assistant's row.
Read what Recordstead will run, then click Connect.
For Claude Desktop, Claude opens its own window for the Recordstead extension. Claude warns there that the extension gets access to your computer and that Anthropic has not checked its developer: it says this about every extension installed from a file rather than from its directory. The extension starts only Recordstead's own connector. Confirm the installation there.

The row then reads Configured. Start a new Claude Code or Codex session to use it. If the row asks you to restart ChatGPT, quit and reopen the ChatGPT app.

To disconnect an assistant, click Remove in its row. Claude Desktop removes its extensions itself, so its row offers Remove in Claude instead: click it, then Open Claude, and uninstall Recordstead in Claude's settings.

For any other assistant, open Other assistants, click Copy and paste the message into that assistant.

What it can read

The pane lists this under Connected assistants can read, all of it only in the workspaces you turned on: their names, your meeting list, search results, summaries, your notes on a meeting, stretches of transcript, your tasks, your Dictionary terms, and the templates your summaries are written from. An assistant's search covers every workspace you turned on for it. The assistant learns how many other workspaces exist, but not their names. A meeting's live transcript is not among them.

The section footer states: Recordings and audio paths stay out of reach.

Changing things is a separate switch

Let assistants make changes is off by default. Turn it on only if you want the assistant to rename meetings, check off or remove your tasks, edit Dictionary terms, or add and edit templates, in the workspaces you turned on. It cannot delete meetings.

Check a connection

Click Test Connection in the assistant's row. Connection verified means Recordstead checked the connector and a supported installed client's connection. When only the connector can be checked, the row stays Configured and explains which client verification is unavailable.

A confirmed problem stays in Home's Needs you card. Click Settings on its row to open the affected assistant's settings, then follow the displayed guidance and test again. An incomplete check keeps the last known problem visible.

If the connection stops working

Recordstead must be running. Reopen it and retry; setup does not need repeating.

If the assistant says a workspace or meeting is not turned on for assistants, turn that workspace on under Workspaces, then ask again.

If a row says the assistant points to another connector, for example after you moved Recordstead, click Replace. Recordstead shows the old and the new setting before it changes anything.