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To jump immediately into this quickstart, skip ahead to the requirements.
Unstructured Foundation overview
Unstructured Foundation is an Early Access product. Unstructured must accept you into the Early Access program before you can begin using Foundation. Add your name to the Early Access interest list.Unstructured is currently accepting a limited number of participants into the Early Access program at its discretion, with plans to expand access to a more general audience in the future.The following information is being provided to give you an advance preview of possible future functionality. Unstructured makes no express claims as to what extent this information will reflect the state of the product upon initial general availability.
This quickstart demonstrates how to use Claude Code in your terminal to work with the Unstructured Foundation MCP server. The Foundation MCP server supports other AI tools that support MCP (Model Context Protocol) server connections. However, this quickstart does not demonstrate how to use those tools with Foundation. Some common tools include:
  • AI code editors and IDEs such as Visual Studio Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and JetBrains IDEs.
  • AI chat interfaces and desktop assistants such as Codex.
To learn how to connect an AI tool other than Claude Code, see the Unstructured Foundation installation overview.

Requirements

Before you can begin this quickstart, you must have the following: To learn how to connect an AI tool other than Claude Code, see the Unstructured Foundation installation overview.

Set up Foundation

  1. From your terminal, within a Claude Code session, add the Foundation MCP server plugin marketplace:
  2. Use the marketplace you just added to install the Foundation MCP server:
  3. Reload and then begin connecting to the Foundation MCP server from within a Claude session:
    Find and select the plugin:foundation:foundation entry, and then select Authenticate.
  4. A web browser tab will appear, prompting you to begin authenticating with Foundation. Follow the on-screen instructions to finish authenticating.

Connect to and index your source

  1. Within a Claude Code session in your terminal, enter the following prompt:
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io/connect
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. The Connect sources to use Foundation page appears. Connecting to a new source from Claude Code If this page does not appear after you sign in to Foundation, click the New Source button to show a page with similar functionality.
  5. Click one of the available sources, and then click Connect.
  6. Follow the on-screen directions to finish connecting to your source.
  7. View the source files’ ingestion and indexing job’s progress. To do this, on the sidebar, click Summary.
  8. Wait until the source’s tile displays Fully indexed.
  9. You can now start using Claude Code to work with the generated index. For example, you can ask Claude Code questions such as the following:

(Optional) Clean up

After you connect Foundation to your source files, Foundation periodically runs an automatic process to check whether any of your source files’ contents have changed. Foundation will then re-ingest and re-index each source file that it determines has changed since its last check. This process, if left running, can result in additional time and costs. To have Foundation pause or resume periodically running this automatic process, then follow the instructions to pause or resume the source. To stop Foundation from periodically running this automatic process, and to also have Foundation delete all of its ingested and indexed information about your source files, follow the instructions to remove the source.

Next steps

  • To learn more about how to use Unstructured Foundation, enter the following prompt in Claude Code: /foundation:help
  • Manage your Foundation sources: Add, change, and remove sources from Foundation.
  • Foundation storage: Understand what artifacts that Foundation generates, indexes, and stores about your sources.
  • Troubleshoot Foundation: Solutions for common issues.

Questions? Need help?