Claude in Foundry: Desktop or Code
Anthropic builds both clients, so no agent app sits in the path. Desktop and Code differ in how you add each one, how many tools each carries, and whether a fetched picture ever reaches your screen.
Guide
Two doors lead from Gemini into a Foundry game. One is Antigravity, Google's own agent, which signs in with a Google account and asks for no paid AI plan. The other skips agents entirely: a Google API key, entered in Familiar's settings. Both reach Familiar, enabled in the world you run as GM, and what it plays there is the published adventure you imported; the plot came with those pages. One thing a free Google account does not cover is Familiar's own subscription, which applies on either route.
Antigravity ships in two surfaces, and they share one MCP config file, so setting Familiar up in either leaves it sitting in the other as well. A Google account connects both, a free one included; the limits follow your plan, so Pro and Ultra lift the ceiling rather than unlocking the feature.
Familiar's wizard card writes the entry for either surface. Nothing on this route is typed by hand; what differs is where the entry goes, and the bullets below carry that. The check that proves the link waits at the end of this page.
The free tier is real, and it is also the smallest allowance on this page. A long night of heavy asking can reach the end of it, and the fix for that is a paid Google tier rather than anything on Familiar's side.
Most of what breaks an MCP link is not Antigravity's doing, and those cases have a page of their own, linked below. What is left is short. Every entry on it sits between the install and the first answer.
The window you installed from cannot see it yet. Close that window, open a new one, and type agy --version there; a version number means the install took. A Mac or Linux terminal behaves the same way.
The sign-in is a menu rather than a button. Pick Google OAuth, the first entry, press Enter, then open the URL agy prints in your browser. Once the browser says you are in, close that terminal window instead of pressing Ctrl+C, which does not reliably leave agy, and open a fresh one for the setup command.
The command writes the file and prints nothing, so silence was the expected result. An older Antigravity build reads the previous config location instead, the antigravity folder under .gemini rather than the config folder; put the same entry there too. If you typed the entry by hand, leave out any type field, which Antigravity rejects.
The tick is weak evidence. agy loads its MCP servers in the background and never checks on the process it started, so the tick can sit over one that has died; Foundry's own MCP tab is the honest read. Then ask agy for its version. Builds before 1.1.10 left the server process behind when a session ended, and an old enough leftover still holds the port against the new server. Update agy, end the leftover, and open agy again.
The Editor reads that file when it starts. Click the refresh icon beside the list first, which re-reads it in place; on the standalone IDE that is Manage MCP Servers, then Refresh. If familiar still does not show, quit the Editor fully and open it again. Then start a new conversation before you ask anything.
The command only ever replaces the familiar entry and leaves the rest of the file alone. The one file it will not merge into is one it cannot read as JSON, and that one it copies to mcp_config.json.bak beside the original before writing. Open the .bak, fix what broke it, and paste your other servers back.
Nothing gets installed on this route. You point Familiar at a Gemini model, hand it a Google API key, and the answers come back in a chat window inside Foundry, with Google metering what you use. It is the shortest setup on this page.
That window is also where Familiar's own conveniences live, the ones that need Foundry open in front of you. An outside agent has no way to reach them.
One Gemini-shaped detail, because it catches people arriving from another model. On this route you set the reasoning effort inside Familiar, and no Gemini family offers an off rung, so the lowest setting is the floor. A Gemini model always thinks a little before it answers.
The fork is not about power. It is about where you want the assistant to sit: in a terminal or an editor beside Foundry, or in Familiar's own window inside Foundry. Answer that and the route picks itself.
The adventure is the part no machine made. Someone drew those maps, wrote that cast, and laid out the rooms and the journals. You import their work into your world, and Gemini plays from the pages in front of it.
That is also why the free route holds up. Your Google tier decides how much you can ask for in one evening. It does not decide whether the story is any good, because the story arrived with the module. What Gemini adds is the voice, the read on a moment, and the bookkeeping while you play.
Journals & NotesCharacters & ItemsKnowledge & MemoryOne line proves the whole chain, and both Antigravity cards in Familiar's wizard end on it. Before you send it, check that the link is up on the surface you chose. In the CLI, type agy, then /mcp, and look for familiar listed as connected; the first time a Familiar tool runs, Antigravity asks for approval, so allow it. In the Editor, the list under Installed MCP Servers shows familiar with a green dot and its tool count, and the ask goes in a new conversation. If the answer names your world, you are through.
The four under it are short on purpose. A narrow question answered from one page costs a fraction of a wide one, and that is the habit to start with on the smaller allowances. Each ask reaches one of the three things named above: a journal page, a sheet, or what the campaign has been told to remember.
Use Familiar's get-world-info tool
Open the journal entry for <location> and describe what the party sees as they arrive, using only what is on that page.
Which party member is carrying <item>, and how many do they have? Read it off the sheets.
Save this as a campaign memory: <what just happened>.
What does the campaign remember about <NPC or place>? Look in the saved memories and the journals first.
Anthropic builds both clients, so no agent app sits in the path. Desktop and Code differ in how you add each one, how many tools each carries, and whether a fetched picture ever reaches your screen.
Codex is the route in, as a tab in the ChatGPT app or as Codex CLI, on every plan including Free. The wiring, the first asks, what to do when Codex says no, and the key route that skips it.
xAI's terminal agent is the one Grok that speaks to a Foundry game, on your SuperGrok plan. One command registers Familiar, and grok mcp doctor familiar proves the link before you type a word. The Grok app itself cannot reach a server on your machine.
Where Muse Code keeps Familiar and your model, what /mcp has to say before the first ask, and the fixes for its installer and settings file.
Play most weeks on a subscription you hold and MCP is the cheaper route, with nothing billed per token. A provider key wins when you want a specific model, tighter spend, or hold no subscription. The numbers, and what only the built-in chat can do.
Which model holds a tool chain together, where to get one, and when to turn the thinking up or down. Plus how to tell a weak model from thin prep.
Run the model on your own PC instead of a provider, so your world never leaves the machine and the bill moves from a token meter to your graphics card. Setup is one settings tab and one switch. Without a discrete GPU, expect minutes per turn.
New to Familiar? I'm Ryan, the person who built it. The Discord is small and brand new, so if you join now I'll help you get set up myself.