Connect your own Claude

The copilot pane ends with a Connect to Claude button, and it is a different thing from the copilot above it. The copilot spends your API key on a hosted model inside the app; this button wires a Claude you already run on your machine to Vike Trader's MCP server, so that Claude can validate scripts, run backtests and — behind a preview gate — trade, through tools. The server is vike-cli mcp; the button only writes the command that registers it.

What the button generates

crates/vike-studio/src/connect.rs is the whole helper: server_entry builds the executable plus its argv tail — the mcp subcommand, then --addr <host:port> when the Studio has a datahub address to give — and claude_code_add_command renders the copy-pasteable line for Claude Code:

claude mcp add <name> -- <path-to-vike-cli> mcp --addr 127.0.0.1:7878

The pane shows the result in a single-line field under the button. There is no Claude Desktop config merge: the module header records that the retired predecessor crate's JSON helper was dropped, because the Studio only ever surfaced the command. For Claude Desktop, the JSON block on Connect an agent is the same server registered by hand.

Why it carries a datahub address and not a store path

vike-cli mcp's run and list tools — run_backtest, run_sweep, run_walk_forward, list_strategies, list_series — go over a running vike-datahub server, not an in-process store (crates/vike-cli/src/cmd/mcp.rs's header; that is what keeps the CLI free of the query engine). So the generated command carries the data service's address and never a history-store path. ChatPane::connect_to_claude reads it off the Studio's Remote backend: with Remote selected, its address rides as --addr, so the spawned server dials the same datahub the Studio offloads to; with Local selected no --addr is written, and the server falls back to its own default, 127.0.0.1:7878 — the same default vike-cli's backtest verb uses.

The optional node keys, VIKE_TRADEHUB_OBSERVE_KEY and VIKE_TRADEHUB_CONTROL_KEY, are — per server_entry's doc — the operator's process-environment concern, never something the Studio writes into a generated command. --node, the running trading node the trade tools reach, is not generated either; add it by hand if you want the live tools, as the guide shows. The scoping flags are in the same position: --profile read-only (or --deny-tool NAME) goes on the generated line by hand, and it is what withholds the order-write tools from the Claude you are wiring up rather than merely gating them.

Whether your build has it

The generator is compiled only under vike-studio's non-default mcp feature — a plain code gate over the connect module, no extra dependency; the crate manifest and its lib.rs both say so. Without the feature the button still exists and still responds: it writes a note into the same field instead of a command — "MCP connect helper not compiled in — rebuild vike-studio with --features mcp to generate the claude mcp add command that registers vike-cli mcp (needs a running vike-datahub server)" — so the pane renders identically minus the copyable line.

What you get once it is registered

vike-cli mcp is a local stdio MCP server — newline-delimited JSON-RPC, hand-rolled, no SDK. Its tools split into read-only ones (compile-validate a script, discover its param() knobs, list the templates and the host-bound indicators — all offline — plus the datahub-backed run and list tools and a node snapshot) and order-writing ones behind a mandatory preview: a write executes only on a call carrying both confirm: true and the preview_token an earlier preview of that same command returned, and anything less previews again rather than failing — so the Claude you wired up here cannot place an order in one call, and a confirming call with no token comes back will_execute: false rather than as an error. If it should not be able to place one at all, add --profile read-only to the generated line: the seven write tools then never appear in tools/list, and are refused if called anyway. The tool-by-tool reference is Trader tools; the verb itself is vike-cli mcp; the service the run tools need is vike-datahub.