RCC · FileMaker + AI · Get set up

Claude Code & FileMaker
Get set up to build with AI on FileMaker.

Five pieces, mostly free, one afternoon. By the end you'll have an AI coding agent that speaks FileMaker, working in a folder on your own machine.

Joe DaSilva · RCC Consulting · joe.dasilva@rcconsulting.com

The kit

5

model · paste · eyes · folder · connection

To start

$0

free but the Claude plan

Golden path

Mac

+ Claude = the easy lane

Today

Live

edit a real script

Why go down this road

You're already a builder. Now point that at AI.

FileMaker Builder

FileMaker made you full-stack without a CS degree — you build the UI, the logic in scripting, on a database, security, and infrastructure your whole team can share. You were a problem-solver, and the tool met you where you were.

Agentic FileMaker

Now an AI coding agent does the building — describe a script, a field, a feature and it writes the FileMaker. Claris is opening the platform so you can aim that agent at your own solutions. The same leap you already made, with a new tool.

Where Claris placed its bet

Claris didn't bolt an AI into the box — it opened the box up to the agent you already have. Docs it can read, formats it can write. FileMaker stays your system of record; your agent does the building.

This isn't leaving FileMaker. It's the same problem solver, picking up the new tool — and aiming it at FileMaker itself.

First, clear up one word

Three things people call "an agent."
We mean the last one.

What we've had for years

Chat

→

One question, one answer. You ask, it replies. Then you do the work.

ChatGPT · Claude.ai · Gemini

The agent in a chat app

Cloud agent

⟳

It loops, in the cloud. Browses, runs a task, reports back. Never opens your project.

ChatGPT agent · Claude agent mode

New, and what we use

Coding agent

⟳ +

It lives on your computer. Reaches your files, runs tools, writes new ones. Reads your file and writes your scripts.

Claude Code · Codex

And not the AI inside FileMaker — semantic find, RAG, the AI script steps. That's what you ship to your users. This is the agent that helps you build.

Coding agents aren't new — coding agents that finish the job are.

What you need

The kit: five pieces, mostly free.

1

Model + harness — Claude Code: the brain, and the software around it.

2

MBS plugin — the hands: copy-paste between FileMaker and Claude.

3

ProofKit — the eyes: live data and schema, via an MCP.

4

The starter folder — the knowledge: teaches Claude FileMaker.

5

Direct connection — talk to your data with no MCP to maintain.

Four of the five are free. The one you pay for is the model — a Claude plan.

Piece 1 · the worker

A model — and the harness around it.

The model is the brain, and it leapfrogs month to month. The harness — Claude Code — is the software around it: the slash commands, the skills, how the model knows to use its tools. The harness is the part that matters.

The big four (so far)

Claude Code · Codex (OpenAI) · Cursor · Antigravity (Google) — with Grok build just emerging. The models trade the lead constantly.

Pick one and dig in

There's no settled "right way" yet. Stick with Claude or Codex — they push their harness hardest and are most generous on usage. Aggregators pay for tokens, so your money buys less.

Don't shop forever. Pick one harness and go deep.

Piece 2 · the hands

Three ways into FileMaker. We use paste.

Copy-paste ✓

Every change passes through your hands before it lands. You stay in the loop. The easiest path — and the right one to start.

Patch (later)

The agent writes the file directly. Powerful, more setup, more autonomous — a version-two skill.

Direct access (coming soon)

Later this summer, Claris opens native agent access to scripts, layouts, and schema — no copy-paste, no patch. The agent reaches FileMaker directly.

The tool that makes paste seamless is MBS — Monkey Bread Software's FileMaker plugin. Copy a script and it's readable XML; paste Claude's XML back and FileMaker accepts it. No manual step.

Paste keeps you the gate. That's a feature, not a limitation.

How the paste actually works

Two clipboards, one quiet translator.

FileMaker's clipboard doesn't hold text — it holds XML sealed in a private format (a code like XMSS). That's why a copied script won't paste into a text editor, and raw XML won't paste into FileMaker. MBS translates between them, automatically.

Copy a script

FileMaker

Lands as a sealed XML packet only FileMaker can open.

⇄

Auto · both ways

MBS Converter

Mirrors the sealed packet ⇄ plain-text XML every time you switch apps.

⇄

Plain text

Claude Code

Reads and edits it as ordinary text.

MBS plugin 15.4+ · free (SyntaxColoring) · macOS + Windows · one checkbox. Travels: scripts, fields, tables, custom functions, value lists. Doesn't travel: relationships & table occurrences.

Scan to get MBS

Free · monkeybreadsoftware.com

Piece 3 · the eyes

ProofKit — live eyes into your file.

An add-on in FileMaker stands up an MCP; Claude connects straight to your open solution.

Read & write data

Query and change records through the MCP — against your real file.

See the schema

Explore tables and fields with SQL. The actual structure, not a guess.

Run scripts · build web UIs

It can run your scripts and build web front-ends wired to the data.

One honest limit: it can run a script but can't see what's inside it. Reading script contents is the folder's job — next.

Scan to get ProofKit

Free · proofkit.proof.sh

Piece 4 · the knowledge

A starter folder that teaches Claude FileMaker.

Out of the box Claude knows JavaScript and CSS — but nothing about FileMaker. This folder fixes that.

Skills + live docs

FileMaker skills, plus doc-fetching: it checks Claris's markdown docs — favorite FM 2026 feature — instead of guessing.

XML + snippets

FileMaker objects are XML; the folder teaches it to emit a proper snippet so the pasteboard accepts it.

DDR + exploder

Parse and explode a DDR or Save-as-XML export into per-object files → complete knowledge, including script contents (what ProofKit can't see). Either source works.

fmlint

A linter — a spell-check for code. Before you paste, it runs the agent's snippet past FileMaker's rules (balanced blocks, real steps, sound calcs) and flags anything that would break — so the agent fixes its own work first.

A free, open-source tool from John Petrowsky's agentic-fm — scan the repo.

Piece 5 · the connection

Connect to your data — no MCP to maintain.

The folder also carries a direct connection: skills + Python over oData, the Data API, or an OttoFMS key — whatever you've got. A connection guide tells Claude how to connect, the gotchas, how to search.

Why not just an MCP?

An MCP is one more thing to maintain, and it grows with every database. Put the connection in the folder and this project talks to this database — scoped, nothing to update.

It doubles as your backend

Once Claude can reach FileMaker, "build me a website" already has its data connection. And oData can mutate schema — create tables and fields from code.

FileMaker 2026 also lets oData list and run your scripts (by stable ID) and surfaces AI annotations — handy context for the agent. (It still can't read script contents — that's the DDR.)

It's a starter, not a finished thing

The folder is a living seed.

You shape it to how you work — just by talking to Claude. "This stepping-away skill isn't quite right — change it to do X and Y." Your conventions, baked in a little more every week.

Make it yours

Adjust skills, add quirks, write your own conventions. The folder gets smarter the more you use it.

Standing on shoulders

Built on the community's work — stepping-away from Full City, the exploder from Soliant, fmlint from Petrowsky, MBS, ProofKit from Proof. You adopt their skills and adapt them.

Start from this — then make it the way you build.

Why a folder at all

Work in folders. Chat evaporates.

Chat is ethereal

Everything you figure out dies when the conversation ends. Tomorrow you start from zero.

Folders compound

Duplicate the starter and every new project boots with all that knowledge. As you create DDRs, project-specific knowledge grows — right where you want it.

Not locked in

Switch harness or model whenever you like — point the new one at the same folder and it inherits everything. Your knowledge isn't hostage to any vendor.

The daily rhythm: change logs of every FileMaker change, plus stepping-away at day's end and what's-next at day's start. You come back and the project remembers.

Knowledge lives in files you own — portable, per-project, permanent.

Set expectations

The golden path: Mac + Claude.

There's a lane where everything just works — and it's worth knowing you're on it (or not).

On the path

macOS + Claude (Code or Desktop). Smoothest, best-documented, most likely to just work. This is the lane we point you to.

Off the path

Windows, or another harness. It works — but you're more on your own, and some pieces (MBS, ProofKit) lean Mac-first.

Where to run it

The Terminal CLI still leads on raw features — but so much has gone into Claude Desktop that it's now a genuinely nice place to build, and where we'd point new folks. Going Terminal? Pair it with Warp — far nicer than the built-in one.

Deviate if you must — but the golden path makes your life easier.

Demo

Now watch it actually work.

A real FileMaker script, changed by Claude, pasted back — in a couple of minutes. This is what you'll be able to do the moment you're set up.

Live · copy-paste

The whole point — do this first

Get set up — scan, in this order.

1

A Claude account — sign up (free to make).

2

A paid plan — Pro or up; the free tier has no Code.

3

Claude Desktop — the app; Claude Code is built in.

4

MBS plugin — install, then tick the Clipboard Converter.

5

ProofKit — optional; live eyes into your file.

6

The starter folder — duplicate it, point Claude at it.

Claude

MBS

ProofKit

Starter

Built on the work of Full City, Soliant, Petrowsky, MBS, Codence, and Proof — thank you.

Joe DaSilva · joe.dasilva@rcconsulting.com · RCC Consulting

Claude Code & FileMakerGet set up to build with AI on FileMaker.