Installation

TwinCat-MCP ships as two components on your engineering machine: a Windows Service that hosts the MCP endpoint your AI agent connects to, and a TcXaeShell plugin that bridges the TwinCAT Automation Interface.

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 — the Service and plugin require a Windows session.
• TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4020.0+ (Beckhoff XAE Shell) — the scripting API used for project manipulation.

Installing

A signed MSI installer that deploys the Windows Service and the TcXaeShell plugin together is on the way. It installs the Service as an auto-start Windows service and registers the plugin inside TcXaeShell — no developer toolchain required.

In the meantime, to get access to TwinCat-MCP for your team, contact info@qubernetic.com.

Licensing

TwinCat-MCP is proprietary software. A valid license is required to use the tools — see Licensing for how to request and install one.

Verifying the install

Once the Service is running, it exposes the MCP endpoint on the local machine:

http://localhost:3001/mcp

A quick way to confirm the Service is up is to connect your agent (see Agent Connection) and list the available tools. If the agent sees the TwinCat-MCP tools, the Service and plugin are working.