LeServiteur Desk help centre

Overview: how it works

LeServiteur Desk lets your AI client (Claude Desktop or Claude Code) work on your computer: it drives web pages in Chrome and, on the desktop, looks at the screen and operates windows. It runs on your own machine.

A licence is a small file (leserviteur-license.jwt). The software refuses to start without a valid one. One licence covers one machine.

1. Buy a licence in the customer portal. Terms: monthly $33.20, quarterly $87.15, yearly $249.
2. Open the product page in your dashboard and download the licence file and the installer for your system.
3. Install, and put the licence file where the software expects it.
4. On first start the machine activates the licence with our licence service and is bound to it. From then on the software checks the licence from time to time.
5. Point your AI client at LeServiteur and ask it for something to do on your desktop.

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System requirements

• Windows: Windows 11 x64. Windows 10 is untested. Node and Python are bundled, you do not install them.
• Linux: Ubuntu or Debian, x64, installed with apt, running an X11 session. Wayland sessions are not supported.
• An MCP client: Claude Desktop or Claude Code. The Windows installer registers LeServiteur in Claude Desktop for you.
• Google Chrome, only for the browser tools. Desktop control works without it.
• A licence file from the portal.
• Internet access for activation and licence checks.

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Buy and download

1. Sign in to the portal and open Products, then LeServiteur Desk. Choose a term and pay. One licence is for one machine.
2. When the purchase is complete the same page shows your licence with a Download licence button. It saves the file leserviteur-license.jwt.
3. Next to it are two download buttons: Download for Windows (.exe) and Download for Linux (.deb). The Linux package is for Ubuntu and Debian x64 with an X11 session.
4. Installers are only offered while you hold an active licence. Downloads are limited to 10 per hour per account.

Keep the licence file. You can download it again from the same page at any time while the licence is active.

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Install on Windows

1. Run the installer you downloaded (leserviteur-setup-<version>-client.exe). It asks for administrator rights because it installs for all users and registers a logon task.
2. If LeServiteur is already installed you are asked what to do: keep my settings and licence (default, an upgrade in place), remove it completely first, or remove it completely and quit.
3. Accept the licence agreement.
4. On the licence token page, pick your .jwt file. If you leave it blank the install still finishes, but the server will not start until the file is at %USERPROFILE%\.leserviteur\license.jwt. Versions before 1.12.8 used %USERPROFILE%\.gnomemcp; installing 1.12.8 or later moves it for you.
5. Choose how LeServiteur sees the screen: use Claude Code on this machine (nothing to download; clicking by raw pixel coordinates is not available in this mode), download a model and run it here (about 2.5 GB, once), use our hosted model, or point at an OpenAI-compatible endpoint you already run. You can change this later in the dashboard.
6. Leave LAN access off unless an MCP server on another host must drive this machine. On means the desktop agent listens on all interfaces and opens a firewall rule on port 8889. Off means this machine only.
7. Finish the wizard. The installer creates a per-machine agent token, registers a logon task and adds a leserviteur entry to %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json without touching your other MCP servers.

After installing

• Log in to the Windows desktop session. Nothing that looks at the screen works before you do: the desktop agent runs at logon inside your session on purpose.
• Open the local dashboard from the LeServiteur tray icon, Open dashboard. It shows the server, the desktop agent, the vision model and the licence, and lets you install or replace the licence without reinstalling.
• Restart Claude Desktop so it re-reads its configuration.

Uninstall

Settings, Apps, LeServiteur, or the Uninstall LeServiteur Start menu entry. It asks once whether to delete %USERPROFILE%\.leserviteur and your data folder. The default answer is No.

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Install on Linux (standalone)

This is the package you get from the portal: leserviteur_<version>_amd64.deb. The server runs on your machine and your MCP client starts it on demand.

1. Log in to an X11 session. Wayland is not supported.
2. Install the package from the folder where you saved it:

sudo apt install ./leserviteur_<version>_amd64.deb

3. Put your licence file in place:

mkdir -p ~/.leserviteur
cp ~/Downloads/leserviteur-license.jwt ~/.leserviteur/license.jwt

The package recommends tesseract-ocr, ffmpeg, xinput, tmux and libnotify-bin, which apt installs by default. They serve optional tools such as screen text reading and recording. A tool whose helper is missing reports it instead of failing.

On Linux there is no tray icon and no dashboard, and no background service: the server starts when your MCP client launches /usr/bin/leserviteur-mcp. To remove it: sudo apt remove leserviteur. Your ~/.leserviteur folder is left in place.

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Linux cloud edition

The cloud edition gives a hosted LeServiteur server hands on your X11 desktop. It is a different package, leserviteur-cloud, and it cannot be installed alongside the standalone leserviteur package. The portal download button offers the standalone package; if you were given the cloud package, follow these steps.

1. Install it:

sudo apt install ./leserviteur-cloud_<version>_amd64.deb

It installs two systemd user units, leserviteur-agent (screen capture and input inside your graphical session) and leserviteur-connector (links this desktop to the hosted server), enables them for every user, and provides /usr/bin/leserviteur-mcp. The units are user units on purpose: capture and input must live inside your graphical session.

2. Put your licence at ~/.leserviteur/license.jwt and create ~/.leserviteur/config.json with the address of your hosted server (versions before 1.12.8 used ~/.gnomemcp; 1.12.8 and later move it for you on first start):

{
  "edition": "cloud",
  "serverUrl": "https://<your-server-address>"
}

3. Restart the connector:

systemctl --user restart leserviteur-connector

Until both files exist the connector is skipped rather than crash-looping. The agent creates its own token (~/.leserviteur/agent.token) on first start. The connector activates your licence against https://mcp.leserviteur.net and keeps checking in with a heartbeat.

Check that both are running:

systemctl --user status leserviteur-agent leserviteur-connector

A unit that fails on every start stops after 5 tries in 60 seconds. Fix the cause, then run systemctl --user reset-failed and restart it.

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Activate the licence and connect your AI client

Activation

Activation happens by itself the first time the software starts with your licence file on a machine with internet access. The licence service records the machine and gives it a short-lived lease which the software renews while it runs. You do not enter anything else.

Your portal licence page then lists the machine under Activated machines.

Claude Code

On Linux, register the launcher as an MCP server, then restart Claude Code:

claude mcp add leserviteur --scope user -- /usr/bin/leserviteur-mcp

Claude Desktop and other clients

On Windows the installer has already added the entry, restart Claude Desktop. For any other client that reads an mcpServers configuration, run the launcher as the command (on Linux the standalone and cloud packages both provide /usr/bin/leserviteur-mcp):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "leserviteur": {
      "command": "/usr/bin/leserviteur-mcp"
    }
  }
}

MCP clients read their server list at startup, so restart the client itself after changing it, not only the conversation.

Check it works

Ask your client for something only the desktop can answer, for example: Take a screenshot of my desktop and tell me which windows are open. For the browser: Open https://example.com, take a snapshot and tell me what the page says. You do not call tools by hand: you ask, and the client picks the tool.

If the client says a tool does not exist, that family of tools is not enabled or the client was not restarted.

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Machines, renewal and revocation

Machines

• One licence is bound to one machine.
• Changing machine is limited: a licence may change machine twice per licence year, counted from the day it was issued.
• To free a machine you no longer use (a dead laptop, a reinstall), open the licence in the portal and press Release seat next to the machine under Activated machines. The machine has to activate again to use the licence.
• A machine that fails the concurrency check waits 900 seconds (15 minutes) before it can try again.

Renewal

• Renewal opens before the licence expires: 7 days before for a monthly licence, 14 days for a quarterly one, 30 days for a yearly one. The licence page tells you the date.
• A renewal starts a new term on the day you pay, so it is offered only when the current one is about to end.
• Where it is available the licence page also has an automatic renewal switch.
• After renewing, download the new licence file and replace the old one: on Windows from the dashboard (install or replace the licence) or at %USERPROFILE%\.leserviteur\license.jwt, on Linux at ~/.leserviteur/license.jwt. Then restart your MCP client.

Revocation

If a licence is revoked in the portal, machines stop working at their next licence check (at least once a day). A machine that cannot reach the licence service keeps working for at most 30 days after its last successful check, or until the licence expires if that comes first.

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Troubleshooting

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Contact

Write to contact@leserviteur.com or use the contact page. Include the licence label shown in the portal, your operating system, and the exact message you see. Never send the licence file itself.

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