Connecting Your Agent

Connect a coding agent or a chat platform to AbleTime so it can record draft time and work your tasks as you. Reference detail lives under Documentation → Agentic AI; this guide is the first-connection path.

1. Enable agent access

Have your administrator go to Settings → Integrations → API Keys and switch Agent access (MCP) to Enabled. Until it is on, no agent can connect to the organization, whichever way it signs in. See Documentation → Integrations → API Keys and Documentation → Agentic AI → MCP Authentication.

2. Create your personal access key

Open My Profile, go to the API Access tab and click Create access key. Copy the key immediately — AbleTime shows it once and never again.

The key applies to the organization you are signed in to; if you belong to several organizations, each has its own key. You can create the key before your administrator enables agent access — it starts working as soon as they do. If you lose the key, click Rotate to create a new one; the old key stops working immediately.

Every connection runs on this key, whichever way your host connects: a connection you approve in your browser never sees the key, but it works only while you hold one in that organization. An organization API key cannot connect an agent; only your personal key can. For how personal keys differ from organization API keys, see the Personal Access Tokens guide.

3. Choose your connection

Each connection is its own server entry in your host. Add the combined address; it records your time and runs the board from one entry:

https://track.abletime.com/api/public/v2/mcp/full

Add Reports as a second entry if you want your agent to read reports (see Intelligence Reports with Your Agent):

https://track.abletime.com/api/public/v2/mcp/reports

If you want your host to see fewer tools, add the work address instead of the combined one; it records time and works the tasks it is recorded against:

https://track.abletime.com/api/public/v2/mcp

Add the board address alongside it only if you will run the board — assigning, scheduling, blocking, epics and the like:

https://track.abletime.com/api/public/v2/mcp/pm

4. Approve the connection in your browser

If your host supports it — Cursor, Claude Code and browser platforms such as Claude.ai do — add the server address with no key. The first time the host reaches AbleTime it opens Connect to AbleTime in your browser. Sign in if you are asked to, then read what the page says: it names the app that is asking (for Cursor and Claude Code it adds that the app registered itself and its name is not verified, which is expected), and it tells you the app will record and read time and tasks as you, with your own permissions, in the organization you are signed in to. Click Approve. Your browser returns to the host and the agent is connected; Deny sends it back with nothing.

Each connection is approved on its own. Approving the work connection (or the combined one) does not connect Reports, so expect the page once for every server entry you added.

5. Or paste your key

For a host that takes a key instead, add the server address from step 3 and put the header Authorization: Bearer <your personal access key> on that server entry.

6. The agent's first reply

When a session starts, the agent orients itself before it answers you: it reads your open drafts and active tasks and AbleTime's recording rules, along with its own working document — the file where it keeps your preferences, in the .cursor folder for Cursor and the .claude folder for Claude Code; see Customizing Behavior. Then it decides whether the session is your work. If it is, it opens a draft entry against the task the work belongs to, creating the task when none fits. If it cannot tell which task the work belongs to, it asks in its first reply and opens the entry the moment you answer.

7. Your first draft entry

The quickest check is to ask the agent what it has recorded for you. It should name a draft against a task, with the minutes so far. If it has not opened one, ask it to create a time entry and a task in a project of your choice. The draft appears on Time Entry, and the task it is recorded against appears in Project Manager (you may have to refresh the page).

8. Accept in AbleTime

All time entries created by Agents are drafts and invisible to anyone but you. They do not appear in reports, billing or even your dashboards until you accept them.

Open AbleTime, go to Time Entry and you will see any outstanding drafts. You can either accept them individually, or open the Productivity Drawer Review Drafts panel by clicking on the clipboard icon on the far-right margin. Select the drafts you want, then click Accept or Dismiss to handle groups of drafts at once.

If you would rather the agent accept its own drafts, turn on Agent may commit (accept) my time entries under the Privacy & Notifications tab of your profile and click Save preferences. Until then, drafts wait for you in the app.

9. Customization

You can customize how your Agent records your Time Entries and Tasks through prompts. You can tell it things like "Always include the Task reference in the Time Entry body", or "Always put meeting time entries in the Meetings Internal category", and it writes them into its working document so they hold from one session to the next. See Customizing Behavior.

Next: Documentation → Agentic AI → Tips for afk and review habits; Documentation → Agentic AI → Customizing Behavior for working-document defaults. Request detail: API Reference.