PLEASE NOTE: The following guide applies to CloverDX 7.5 — AI Assistant and MCP Server (early-access tech preview)

This article covers what you need, how to license and enable the AI Assistant, and the controls available to administrators. For what the Assistant does and example prompts, see the CloverDX AI Assistant documentation.

• Before you start
• Prerequisites checklist
• Step 1 — Upgrade to 7.5
• Step 2 — Request and retrieve your licence key
• Step 3 — Set the MCP Server policy (admins)
• Step 4 — Configure Designer (each user)
• Connecting your own AI client (MCP Server)
• Governance and privacy
• What it costs
• Troubleshooting
• Getting help

Before you start

The AI Assistant is an early-access tech preview: it's available to all 7.5 customers but is still evolving, and behaviour and defaults may change between releases. Use it on test/dev only, not production, and review everything it produces before relying on it.

It is bring-your-own-key (BYOK): you connect your own AI provider account (Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, or Google), you hold the contract, and you pay the provider directly. CloverDX hosts no AI model and is never in the path of your AI calls.

Prerequisites checklist

For the AI Assistant in Designer:

• CloverDX 7.5 — both Designer and Server upgraded.
• A CloverDX AI Assistant licence key — separate from your Designer seat licence, requested per user (see Step 2). Complimentary during the preview.
• An AI provider account and API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, or Google).
• Outbound network access from each Designer machine to your chosen provider's API. (The Server needs no AI connectivity.)
• A CloverDX Server project to work in. Server projects only — local projects are not supported.

For using your own AI client via the MCP Server:

• A CloverDX 7.5 Server for the full job-authoring toolset. An optional MCP Proxy extends it to Server versions 6.0–7.4.
• An MCP-capable client (Claude Code, Codex, or similar) on your machine, with its own provider key.
• Network reachability from your client to the CloverDX Server on your network. No public internet exposure is required.

Note: For evaluation, everything — Server, Designer, and a database — can run on a single laptop.

Step 1 — Upgrade to 7.5

Upgrade both the Server and the Designer distribution your team uses to CloverDX 7.5. This is the only hard prerequisite the upgrade itself imposes. The MCP licence is bundled with the 7.5 Server licence key for the preview, so the Server needs no special provisioning beyond running 7.5.

After upgrade, the Assistant is visible in Designer but inactive until a licence key is applied (Step 2) and a provider is configured (Step 4).

Step 2 — Request and retrieve your licence key

The Assistant licence is separate from your Designer seat and is not issued automatically, even to existing customers. It is your per-user on/off switch — withhold the key and the Assistant cannot be activated.

1. Request the key (per user) through your CloverDX Account Manager. It is complimentary during the 7.5 preview.
2. Once you're notified it has been issued, retrieve it from the CloverDX Customer Portal at support.cloverdx.com/myaccount, or get it from your admin.
3. Apply the key in Designer (Step 4).

Step 3 — Set the MCP Server policy (admins)

The Assistant reaches sandbox contents only through the MCP Server, and external AI clients use the same surface. This is your main runtime guardrail. Choose one of three settings:

MCP Server connections honour the permissions of the user who connects. Keep the MCP Server reachable by internal clients only; it needs no public network. See the MCP Server admin docs.

Admins should also designate a test/dev Server project for preview use, confirm Designer machines can reach the chosen provider's API through the firewall/proxy, and communicate any approved-provider policy to users.

Step 4 — Configure Designer (each user)

Once your admin has the Server on 7.5 and you have a licence key, do this once:

1. Run CloverDX Designer 7.5.
2. Apply your Assistant licence key (retrieved in Step 2, or from your admin).
3. Open Window → Preferences → CloverDX → CloverDX AI Assistant.
4. Enter your AI provider API key and choose your provider and model(s). Your key is stored in encrypted secure storage, not plaintext.
5. Open the designated Server project. Remember: Server projects only.
6. Open the chat panel — usually docked on the right; if not, open it via Window → Show View → Other… → CloverDX → Clover Assistant.

There is no Server-side configuration on the user's end. By default the Assistant runs in read-write mode; switch between modes at any time by typing /read-only or /read-write in chat.

Connecting your own AI client (MCP Server)

To drive CloverDX from your own AI tool instead of (or alongside) the Designer Assistant:

1. Confirm the MCP Server is reachable from your client on your network (your admin handles exposure and access — see the admin docs).
2. Configure your MCP-capable client to connect to the CloverDX MCP Server using the access credentials your admin provides.
3. Start working — list sandboxes, author and edit jobs, run them, read execution logs, and ask why a run failed.

The AI model is whatever your client uses (BYOK in your own tool). The MCP Server itself sends nothing to any model.

Governance and privacy

The short version: you stay in control of your data and your AI spend.

• CloverDX hosts no AI model and keeps no copy of your data, prompts, or responses. There is no CloverDX endpoint in the AI path, and no built-in LLM in the Server.
• The Server is never in the path to the AI provider. The Designer Assistant calls your chosen provider directly from the Designer machine; the Server only provides the tools the Assistant uses to work on your project.
• Data is shared only with the provider you connect, under your contract and that provider's terms. Your Server, Designer, sandboxes, and project data stay wherever you deploy them.

Your controls today:

Plan for these limitations during the preview:

• Provider and key are configured per user, locally. There is no centralized management of which provider or key each user uses. Your central levers are licence distribution and the MCP Server controls — not per-user provider policy.
• Data-sharing controls are coarse. There are no field-level guardrails yet; controls are limited to licence gating, the MCP Server setting, and the per-user mode.
• The Assistant can read, modify, and run jobs in the Server project you connect it to, honouring the connecting user's permissions. Point it at a controlled test/dev environment.

A provider allow-list (e.g. Azure OpenAI only) is fully supported — the provider is your choice and is switchable.

What it costs

• The Assistant licence is complimentary during the 7.5 preview. It becomes a paid, seat-based subscription when it leaves preview.
• The MCP Server licence is included with the CloverDX Server at no additional cost during the preview.
• AI provider usage is yours. Because every feature is BYOK, you pay your provider directly for token usage; CloverDX meters nothing and takes no margin.

Note: Agentic work can use a meaningful number of provider tokens. Set a spend limit or budget alert in your provider's dashboard while you evaluate. You can also assign cheaper models to some sub-agent roles in preferences.

Troubleshooting

• The Assistant view is there but nothing happens. It's inactive until you (1) apply the licence key and (2) configure a provider and key. Re-check Window → Preferences → CloverDX → CloverDX AI Assistant, and right-click the view → Refresh/Reload if needed.
• I closed the Assistant panel and can't get it back. Reopen via Window → Show View → Other… → CloverDX → Clover Assistant, or restore with Window → Perspective → Reset Perspective.
• The Assistant won't work on my project. Confirm it's a Server project (not local), and check with your admin that the MCP Server hasn't been disabled.
• It can read but won't change anything. You may be in read-only mode — type /read-write in chat. If that doesn't help, your admin may have set the MCP Server to read-only globally, which overrides the per-user setting.
• Provider/auth errors. Verify the API key is correct for the selected provider and that the Designer machine can reach the provider's API through your network/proxy.
• My MCP client can't connect. Confirm the MCP Server is reachable from your client and that you're using the access credentials your admin provided. See the admin docs.

Getting help

• Onboarding, a guided setup, or a demo → your CloverDX Account Manager or Customer Success contact.
• Licence keys → request through your Account Manager, then retrieve from the CloverDX Customer Portal.
• MCP Server configuration → MCP Server admin docs.

During the preview, feedback is valuable input — route it through your Account Manager, and (with your permission) the Assistant's project session folders help us see exactly what happened.