MCP — free, never metered
Maps your assistant
can actually use.
Ask an AI for a mind map and you usually get a description of one — indented text in a chat window that dies when you close the tab. Atlas Red ships an MCP server, so your assistant builds the real map: in your workspace, with nodes you can drag, branches you can restructure, and an export button that works.
How it works
Connect it once
Add Atlas Red as a connector in Claude or any MCP-capable client — a standard remote endpoint, authorised once from your account.
Ask in plain language
No syntax to learn. Describe what you want — a new map, a branch restructured, an outline turned into nodes — and the assistant does it.
Open the real map
It's already in your workspace. Every node is real — edit, extend, export to any of 14 formats, or hand it back for another pass.
Things worth asking for
Turn my launch notes into a mind map called "Q4 launch".
Read my "Research" map and add a branch for everything we haven't validated.
Restructure this map so the three workstreams are top-level branches.
Link every risk node to the decision it threatens, and label the links.
Export the roadmap map as Markdown so I can paste it into the README.
Behind those requests the server exposes the operations you'd expect: create and rename maps, add nodes and whole subtrees, update and delete, draw and label cross-links between branches, set node images, import any supported text format, export to any supported format — and undo and redo, so a change you didn't want is one step back rather than a lost afternoon.
Chat is a bad place
to keep a structure.
An assistant is genuinely good at the part people find hardest — getting the first version out of your head and into a shape. It's a poor place to keep that shape. Scroll up far enough and the outline is gone; there's nothing to drag, nothing to fold, nothing to hand to someone else.
Connecting the two fixes the halves that were each missing something. The assistant does the drafting and the tedious restructuring; the map is where the thinking lives, gets edited, and leaves from. You can start a map in chat and finish it by hand, or start it by hand and ask for a second pass — the map doesn't care which direction the work came from.
And because the intelligence is your assistant's, Atlas Red has nothing to meter. There's no AI subscription here, no per-message credit, no model quietly swapped for a cheaper one.
What it costs
Nothing, on every edition. MCP access is free and never metered — it works on the Free edition, which needs no credit card, and a Pro license doesn't gate it. Every feature is in every edition; a license only lifts limits. Only photo and PDF import ever cost anything, because those need a model to read them.
Questions people ask
What is an MCP server, and why does a mind mapping tool have one?
MCP — the Model Context Protocol — is a standard way for AI assistants to use external tools. Atlas Red runs one so an assistant can work on your actual maps: create them, restructure branches, import an outline, export a finished map. It isn't describing a map in chat; it's editing a real map in your workspace.
Does the MCP server cost anything?
No. It's free and never metered — not an AI feature that consumes Atlas Red credits, because the intelligence comes from your own assistant. There's no AI subscription.
Which AI assistants can connect?
Any MCP-capable client. Claude is the common case, but the protocol is open and the server is a standard remote MCP endpoint, so anything that speaks MCP can connect.
What can the assistant actually do to my maps?
Create and rename maps, add nodes and whole subtrees, update and delete them, draw and label cross-links, set node images, import any supported text format, export to any supported format, and undo or redo — the same operations you have in the app.
Is it safe to let an assistant edit my maps?
Every change lands in your workspace where you can see it, and undo and redo are exposed too — so an unwanted edit is one step back, not a lost map. You can also export any map at any time, on every tier, so you always hold a copy outside the tool.
Do I need a Pro license to use MCP?
No — it works on the Free edition, no credit card. Pro lifts limits like the number of maps and nodes; it doesn't gate MCP, because every feature is in every edition.
Also free and direct: Markdown to mind map. Coming from another tool? Atlas Red vs XMind, vs MindMeister and vs Miro.