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Connect Claude to Tallyfy Desktop

What gets installed

Section titled “What gets installed”

Tallyfy Desktop drives Claude through Anthropic’s official claude command-line tool (Claude Code). On first launch, the desktop app checks whether claude is on your PATH and whether you’ve signed in. If either is missing, it offers to install or guide you.

The install command per platform is baked into the desktop app source code:

PlatformCommand
macOScurl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
Linuxcurl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
Windowspowershell -Command "irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex"

Binaries land under ~/.local/bin/ on macOS and Linux, and under %LOCALAPPDATA%\claude\bin\ on Windows. No sudo or admin rights are required.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • A Tallyfy account (you’ll sign in to Tallyfy Desktop first, before any AI tab works)
  • A Claude.ai subscription on Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan
  • A modern web browser for the OAuth sign-in step (the desktop app opens it for you)
Section titled “Option A: Install Wizard (recommended)”

This is the path the desktop app guides you through. The wizard shows the exact command before it runs and asks for an explicit consent gesture.

  1. Open the Claude tab

    In Tallyfy Desktop, click the Claude tab. If the CLI isn’t installed, the Install Wizard appears.

  2. Read the consent screen

    The wizard shows:

    • The provider being installed (Claude, Anthropic)
    • The exact command that will run (the curl ... | bash line for your platform)
    • A risks list (network egress, disk writes under ~/.local/bin/, no system modification)
    • A “Hold Shift to install” button

    Install Wizard with the consent screen for Claude

  3. Hold Shift for three seconds

    The button activates only while you hold the Shift key for three seconds. This intentional friction prevents accidental installs. Release the key to cancel.

  4. Watch the progress log

    The wizard streams the installer’s output in real time. You’ll see download progress, the binary unpacking, and a final “Installed Claude vX.Y.Z” line.

    Install Wizard with the progress log showing a successful Claude install

  5. Verify

    The wizard runs claude --version and shows the result. If you see a version number, the binary works.

  6. Sign in with Claude.ai

    Click Sign in with Claude. The desktop app opens Claude’s OAuth flow in your default browser. Approve the connection. The browser will redirect back to a confirmation page; close it when prompted.

    The token is stored under ~/.claude/.credentials.json (and in macOS Keychain on Darwin systems). The desktop app reads it from there; you don’t paste it anywhere.

  7. Test the connection

    Back in the Claude tab, type hi and press Enter. You should see Claude’s streamed response within a few seconds, with the model name in the header.

Option B: Manual install

Section titled “Option B: Manual install”

If you’d rather install Claude outside the desktop app, that works too. Tallyfy Desktop only checks whether claude is on PATH; it doesn’t care how it got there.

  1. Install the Claude CLI

    Open a terminal and run:

    • macOS / Linux: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
    • Windows (PowerShell): irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

  2. Sign in

    In the same terminal: claude login

    This opens Claude’s OAuth flow in your browser. Approve and return to the terminal.

  3. Restart Tallyfy Desktop

    Quit the app fully (Cmd+Q on macOS, File then Quit on Windows/Linux) and reopen it. The Claude tab will detect the new binary and skip the Install Wizard.

First chat

Section titled “First chat”

Once Claude is connected:

  1. Click the Claude tab.
  2. The model picker in the top-right shows the default Claude model (Sonnet 5 in v2.0.0).
  3. Type your message and press Enter. You’ll see the streamed response appear chunk by chunk.
  4. The chat header shows the cost and token usage on completion.

Because the Tallyfy MCP server is auto-injected, Claude already knows about your tasks, processes, templates, and team. Try:

  • “Show me all my open tasks”
  • “Find the customer onboarding template”
  • “Create a task to review next quarter’s hiring plan, due Friday”

That last one will trigger the Task Intent Widget, which offers a one-click button to create the task in Tallyfy.

Verifying the install yourself

Section titled “Verifying the install yourself”

If something feels off, you can check the same things the desktop app checks:

Terminal window
# Is the binary on PATH?
which claude


# Does it run?
claude --version


# Are you signed in?
test -f ~/.claude/.credentials.json && echo "signed in" || echo "not signed in"

The desktop app caches the detection result for 60 minutes. Press Cmd+Shift+R (or Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux) inside the Claude tab to force a re-detection after an install or login.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

”claude binary not found” after install

Section titled “”claude binary not found” after install”

The installer writes to ~/.local/bin/ (or %LOCALAPPDATA%\claude\bin\ on Windows), which isn’t always on the default PATH. Add it:

  • macOS / Linux: echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc), then restart Tallyfy Desktop.
  • Windows: open System Properties, click Environment Variables, add %LOCALAPPDATA%\claude\bin to your user Path.

Then press Cmd+Shift+R (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux) inside the Claude tab to retry detection.

OAuth browser window doesn’t open

Section titled “OAuth browser window doesn’t open”

Some browsers block popup windows from desktop apps. Quit the browser, reopen it, then click Sign in with Claude again. If it still doesn’t open, run claude login directly in a terminal as a workaround.

”Permission denied” on macOS

Section titled “”Permission denied” on macOS”

If the install script can’t write to ~/.local/bin/, your shell might be sandboxed. Try running the install command directly in Terminal.app rather than via the wizard. If chmod errors appear, run chmod +w ~/.local/bin/ and retry.

Quota or rate-limit errors mid-chat

Section titled “Quota or rate-limit errors mid-chat”

Claude’s per-account quota varies by plan. If you hit a quota wall, the streamed response stops and an error event appears in the chat. Wait a few minutes and retry, or upgrade your Claude.ai plan. Tallyfy Desktop doesn’t add quota on top of Anthropic’s; the limit is whatever your subscription says.

The model picker is empty

Section titled “The model picker is empty”

This usually means the OAuth token expired. Click the user menu in the desktop app, choose Sign out of Claude, then click Sign in with Claude again.

What Claude can do that the others can’t

Section titled “What Claude can do that the others can’t”

Claude is the most capable provider in Tallyfy Desktop v2.0.0:

  • Tool use - Claude can call MCP tools (Tallyfy’s auto-injected MCP server) during the chat, not just at the end. You’ll see tool-use-start and tool-use-end events stream in the chat.
  • Thinking - Claude streams its reasoning in a separate channel that’s visible in the chat (collapsible).
  • Cost reporting - Claude reports the exact USD cost of each run on completion.
  • Browser automation - the claude --chrome flag drives a sandboxed Chrome instance for browser-bound workflows. See the desktop repo’s COMPUTER-USE-DEFERRED doc ↗[2] for what it can and can’t do.
  • Attachments - drag a file into the chat and Claude reads it (limited to text and images in v1).

The other providers cover subsets of these. See the overview for the full capability matrix.

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