Back to Pile Capacity

AI assistants · MCP connector

Connect Pile Capacity to ChatGPT and Claude

Describe the soil and the piles in plain language and get the analysis back in the conversation: capacities and pile lengths, PDF and Excel reports, and designs saved to your Pile Capacity workspace.

Listed in the ChatGPT plugin directory and the Claude connectors directory

01

What it is

Pile Capacity estimates the axial bearing and uplift capacity of cast-in-situ bored piles and CFA piles from a soil profile and a pile schedule. The connector puts that application behind an AI assistant, so you can describe a ground profile and a set of piles in plain language and get the analysis back in the conversation.

It runs the same analysis engine as the web app at capacity.hetge.com. The results, the PDF and Excel reports, and the projects and designs you save are the same ones the web app produces, and anything you save through the assistant appears in your workspace there.

Server address
https://capacity.hetge.com/mcp
02

Connect

Pick the assistant you use. Hosts identify themselves to hetGE with Client ID Metadata Documents, so there is no client id, secret or other setting for you to configure.

ChatGPT

Listed in the ChatGPT plugin directory

Open in ChatGPT

Pile Capacity is listed in the ChatGPT plugin directory. Add it from the listing, then complete the hetGE sign-in when ChatGPT prompts you. Once added, it is also available in Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app.

If the directory is not available in your workspace, owners with Developer mode can add it as a custom MCP connection using the server URL below.

Server URL
https://capacity.hetge.com/mcp

Codex CLI

The Codex CLI keeps its own list of MCP servers. Add the server there and sign in with these two commands; the second opens the hetGE sign-in in your browser.

Terminal
codex mcp add pile-capacity --url https://capacity.hetge.com/mcpcodex mcp login pile-capacity --oauth-client-registration cimd

Sign in with your hetGE account. An active Pile Capacity licence is required.

Claude

Listed in the Claude connectors directory

Open in Claude

Pile Capacity is listed in the Claude connectors directory. Press Connect on the listing, then complete the hetGE sign-in when Claude prompts you. Team and Enterprise admins can enable it for the whole organisation from the same page.

If your organisation restricts the directory, add it as a custom connector instead: the dialog opens with the name and the server URL already filled in.

Claude Code

Connectors added in Claude also show up in Claude Code when it is signed in with the same Claude account. To add the server to Claude Code directly instead, run this once in your terminal, then run /mcp inside Claude Code to complete the hetGE sign-in.

Terminal
claude mcp add --transport http pile-capacity https://capacity.hetge.com/mcp

Sign in with your hetGE account. An active Pile Capacity licence is required.

03

What it can do

The connector publishes five tools:

  • Preview design inputsread

    Resolves what the assistant understood into a complete analysis input, and lists every assumption it had to make for a value you did not give.

  • Run analysisread

    Runs the capacity and pile-length analysis and returns one summary per pile: required length, toe level, allowable and ultimate compression and uplift capacity, and the factors used.

  • List projectsread

    Lists the projects already in your Pile Capacity account, so a design can be saved into one of them.

  • Render reportwritenothing is overwritten

    Produces the full calculation report as a PDF or an Excel workbook and returns a signed download link that expires after one hour.

  • Save designwrite

    Creates a project and a design in your account, so the work opens in the web app like any other design.

The flow is the same every time.

  1. 1You describe the piles and the soil in plain language.
  2. 2The assistant shows you the inputs it extracted and the assumptions it made.
  3. 3You confirm or correct them, and only then is the analysis run.
  4. 4A report and a save are optional steps afterwards, and neither happens unless you ask for it.

Two examples of a first message, one in each unit system:

SI
Calculate the required length of three piles under 4000 kN compression and 3200 kN tension, diameters 0.65 m, 0.8 m and 1.0 m, in 3 m soft clay over 5 m medium sand, 3 m dense sand, then weak rock with UCS 0.6 MPa. FS 2 for shaft, 3 for base.
US customary
Calculate the required length of 24 in piles under 300 kips compression and 150 kips tension, in 10 ft soft clay with cu 1500 psf over 20 ft medium sand with phi 33, then weak rock with UCS 90 psi. FS 2 for shaft, 3 for base.

SI or US customary units; the assistant picks the system from the units you write, and the preview warns if the words and the numbers disagree.

04

Data and privacy

Assistant to Pile Capacity

What the assistant sends us when you use a tool:

  • the design inputs it extracted from your conversation, as it interpreted your prompt;
  • one sentence of your own wording about the piles, when it asks for a preview and that wording contains unit words. We use it for one thing only: to check that the units in your words agree with the numbers in the design. It is not stored and not written to our logs;
  • the inputs you confirmed, when you ask it to run the analysis, render a report or save.

Pile Capacity to Assistant

What we send back:

  • the resolved inputs and the assumptions made for anything you did not specify;
  • the analysis results;
  • a download link, when you ask for a report;
  • the identifier of each project and design the tools touch, so the assistant can refer back to the same one later in the conversation.

Report links are signed and expire one hour after they are issued. Nothing is written to your Pile Capacity account unless you ask the assistant to save a design; running an analysis or rendering a report leaves no project or design behind.

The rest of your conversation never reaches us. How the assistant itself stores and processes what you type is governed by that provider, under its own policy, not ours. What we do with what reaches us is set out in the Pile Capacity Privacy Notice.

05

Troubleshooting and support

Licence expired or missing. You can connect and sign in without a licence, but every tool then answers with a licence-required message instead of a result. Buy or renew a Pile Capacity licence at account.hetge.com and ask again. The licence check is cached for a few minutes, so allow a moment before you retry.

Reconnecting after revoking access. In Claude, remove and re-add the connector under Customize, then Connectors. In ChatGPT, disconnect and reconnect it from the Plugins page. In the Codex CLI, run codex mcp logout pile-capacity and then the login command above. In Claude Code, run claude mcp remove pile-capacity and then the add command above. In every case you sign in with your hetGE account again.

Support. Contact hetGE at hetge.com/support.