Discover Octopad

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Octopad is the AI brain for builders: a shared workspace where the AIs you already use organize your work and knowledge for you, under one set of rules. This page explains what Octopad does, how it works, and how to connect ChatGPT or Claude.

In short

If you build with AI, your AI needs more than memory. It needs to know what you are trying to achieve, what was decided and why, what depends on what, and what to do next.

Octopad gives every AI you connect one shared workspace that holds three things:

Your work. Goals, work streams, and tasks. A task can carry its purpose, scope, dependencies, owner, status, priority, and the condition that closes it.
Your knowledge. Pages, decisions, key facts, risks, and open questions, searchable by meaning and by exact words.
One operating method. Built-in rules that tell the AIs you connect what a good task looks like, what to read before starting, when to record a decision, and what to write back when the work closes.

Memory tools help an AI recall. Octopad combines the work, the knowledge, and the method, then assembles them into a briefing for the task at hand.

Octopad is for builders: people who turn ideas into real, ongoing work through AI. Solo or in a team. Software or anything else. If you are building with AI, connecting Octopad is a natural first step, so nothing is lost from day one.

The problem it solves

Building with AI means directing real work over time. Ideas become tasks. Tasks depend on other tasks. Decisions and rejected approaches need to survive. The right context has to reach the task at hand, and progress has to be recorded so the next session, person, or AI can continue.

Without a shared workspace, you carry all of that yourself. You become the project manager and the context carrier for your own AIs, and the work scatters across chats, files, and documents. Octopad hands that job to the AIs you already use: they capture, organize, connect, and update the work and the knowledge as they go, so every session starts from the same source of truth.

What building with Octopad looks like

Brainstorm a feature with your AI. As you refine the idea together, it can build the product spec in Octopad and record the decisions and open questions along the way.

When you are ready to build, Octoplan can turn that work into a detailed, ordered plan. Octoplan is an optional skill you add to your AI: it guides the AI through a structured planning pass, writes the plan into Octopad as a reviewable set of tasks, and asks for your go before anything is built. Its supervised mode then follows that plan task by task, works from your workspace knowledge, including the spec you just produced, re-plans when a discovery changes the order, and puts each result through an adversarial review before handing it back to you. You direct and approve throughout.

Smaller moments matter just as much:

Keep decisions with the work. Ask your AI to capture a decision while you research. A later related task can surface it in its briefing.
Hand work over with one link. The next person or AI can load the task, its dependencies, and the recorded decisions instead of a copied chat summary.
Keep code work in the same record. Tasks can link their GitHub issue and pull request, so the state of the work and the state of the code stay together.

Under the hood

MCP. Octopad connects to your AIs through MCP, the open standard, like USB, that lets an AI plug into outside tools and act in them. ChatGPT connects through the verified Octopad app. Claude, Cursor, and other compatible clients connect the same way.
Retrieval. Search combines exact words, meaning, and page sections, so your AI can find what matters even when the phrasing differs. Results are ranked by relevance, which is evidence of what matches, not proof that nothing else exists.
Task briefings. For a given task, Octopad can assemble a briefing from the task details, its dependencies, linked and related pages, related key facts and decisions, and the progress tracker when one exists. It is a bounded slice, not a dump of the workspace, and it depends on what has been captured: thin source material produces a thin briefing.
The method. The operating rules load into each AI session on Octopad's side, and Octopad enforces the ones it can check, including required task fields on the AI path and access permissions.
Access. Every AI you connect stays limited by its user's access. External agents get their own keys, which you can scope, set to read-only, and revoke.

Who does what

You set direction, decide, review, and grant access.

The AIs you connect operate the workspace. They can plan, execute, update work, and capture reusable knowledge within the access you give them. Model behavior can differ, even though every AI you connect gets the same method and the same checks.

Octopad's background helpers attempt session recaps, page and file summaries, activity logs, and progress rollups. These helpers maintain the record. They do not perform your work, and an output is not guaranteed for every session or change.

Connect your AI

Create your Octopad account first.

ChatGPT

In ChatGPT, open Plugins.
Search for Octopad.
Select it and follow the instructions to connect your Octopad account.

Start a new chat before sending Use Octopad. Start my onboarding. If ChatGPT cannot find the connector, restart the app and try again in a new chat.

Claude

Open Customize, then Connectors.
Choose Add custom connector and name it Octopad.
Paste https://mcp.octopad.app/mcp.
Keep the detected authentication options and choose Add.
Choose Connect and sign in with your Octopad account.

Codex

Open Plugins and click the gear beside Installed.
Choose Add, then Add MCP server.
Select Streamable HTTP, name it Octopad, and paste https://mcp.octopad.app/mcp.
Save, then choose Connect and sign in with your Octopad account.

Create your Octopad account before connecting any AI.

Good to know

Octopad is the system around your AIs, not another AI. It sells no AI model or model usage, so you keep using the AI you already pay for.
Every AI you connect remains limited by its user's access.
Octoplan is an optional skill you install, not a built-in feature that plans by itself.
Task briefings use the work and knowledge already captured in Octopad. They inform your judgment. They do not replace it.

FAQ

What is Octopad?

Octopad is the AI brain for builders: a shared workspace where the AIs you already use organize your work and knowledge for you, under one operating method. It combines a task system, a knowledge system, and that method, then assembles them into a briefing for the task at hand.

What is an AI brain?

An AI brain is the system around your AI models that holds what they need to work well over time: the structured work, the knowledge you accumulate, and the rules for operating both. The models bring the reasoning. The AI brain gives them your context.

Who is Octopad for?

Builders: people who turn ideas into real, ongoing work through AI. Solo builders, small teams, business owners, and employees with a project of their own. You do not need to be building software. Octopad helps the moment you do real work with AI.

What can the AIs I connect do in Octopad?

Within the access you grant, they can read and update goals, work streams, tasks, pages, decisions, key facts, risks, and open questions. They can plan and carry out work under your direction, then record progress and reusable knowledge in the same workspace.

Does Octopad work without me?

No. You set direction, decide, and review. The AIs you connect operate the workspace within the access you grant them. Octopad's background helpers keep the record current with recaps, summaries, and progress rollups, but they do not perform your work.

Which AIs can connect?

ChatGPT through its verified App Directory listing, Claude, Cursor, and other compatible MCP clients. Every AI you connect works within its user's access, and model behavior can differ from one to the next.

How is workspace data handled?

Octopad encrypts data in transit and at rest. Octopad and its subprocessors do not use workspace content to train AI models. Content sent to an AI provider you connect remains governed by that provider's terms and privacy policy.