Connect an AI tool (MCP)

livediagram has an MCP server, so you can connect it to an AI tool you already use, like Claude, and then find, view, create, and edit your diagrams from inside that tool. Point the AI at a codebase and ask for a control-flow diagram, or ask it to tweak an existing one, and the result is saved to your account.

You need an account

Connecting an AI tool is a signed-in-only feature, the same as API tokens and teams. The canvas, sharing, and real-time collaboration stay account-free for guests, but driving your diagrams programmatically is an advanced, opt-in capability that needs an account. On a self-hosted instance that hasn't enabled accounts, the feature isn't available.

Connecting

In your AI tool, add a connector / MCP server pointing at https://mcp.livediagram.app/mcp. The first time, your tool opens a livediagram page asking you to approve the connection (you'll sign in if you aren't already). Approving creates an API token behind the scenes and hands it to your tool. From then on the connection just works.

The token it creates is an ordinary API token: it appears in the Explorer's API tokens page and you can revoke it there any time to disconnect the tool. Like all tokens, it lasts six months.

What the AI can do

The connection exposes these tools:

• Find diagrams — search your diagrams by name, across your personal library and the shared libraries of every team you belong to.
• Read a diagram — get a tab's contents and an inline picture of it.
• List templates — browse the same hand-tuned template library the editor's Quick Start offers.
• Create a diagram — turn a request into a new diagram, with one tab or several. A tab can start from a template — ask for "a kanban board" and the AI can lay down the curated scaffold, then fill in your content.
• Add a tab — add another tab (its own canvas) to an existing diagram, e.g. a detail view of one part. Tabs can start from a template too.
• Update a diagram — rework a whole tab or make a small adjustment.
• Share a diagram — turn a diagram into a share link to hand to someone.
• Rename a diagram and Delete a diagram — tidy your library from the AI tool.

For building the picture, the AI can just describe the graph — the nodes and what connects to what — and livediagram lays it out, so the tool doesn't have to work out coordinates. It only needs to say what exists and what links to what. Your AI tool may also surface a few ready-made prompts (like "Diagram this" or "Flowchart from steps") as quick actions, so you don't have to know the tool names.

The AI does the thinking; livediagram validates, lays out, saves, and renders what it produces. New diagrams an AI creates land in a "Generated" folder in your Explorer (you can move them afterwards).

What a connection can and can't touch

By default the token behind a connection has full read and write access to your diagrams — including the diagrams in your teams' shared libraries — so only connect tools you trust, and revoke the token if you stop using one. If you'd rather a tool could look but not change anything, tick read-only access on the approval screen when you connect it: the connection can then find and read your diagrams but can't create, edit, share, rename, or delete anything (the block is enforced by our server, not just the tool). Its token shows a Read-only badge on the API tokens page.

Either way, a connection can't manage your teams or your account: inviting members, changing roles, and deleting things other than diagrams stay in the app.