When it will not connect

What each status message means, and the usual cause.

The Connections page reports its own state, and the message usually names the cause.

Status messages

Message	What it means
Ready. Open a project so Claude can read it.	The connector is working. There is simply nothing open yet. Not an error.
Ready. Open project: ...	Working, with that project open. This is the healthy state.
Not connected.	The client has not been registered. Use Connect.
Connected. Auto-reconnects on launch.	Claude Desktop is registered and will reconnect itself from now on.
Connected (user scope).	Claude Code is registered for your user, so it is available in every project.
Claude Desktop is not installed.	There is nothing to register against. Install it first.
claude CLI not found on PATH.	Install Claude Code, or run the registration command the page shows.
Broker not found next to the app.	Expected only on a developer build run from a source tree rather than an install. On an installed copy it means the install is incomplete.

Test connection

Test connection runs a round trip and reports what came back. Use it to separate "the client cannot reach the app" from "the app has nothing to show", which look the same from the client side.

The usual causes

Nothing is open. The most common one by a distance. The connector reads the open project.
The client was never registered. Connect is a one-time action per client, but it is an action.
Writes are off and you asked for a change. That is not a connection failure - see Permissions.
The wrong tab is focused. Answers are scoped to the active document.

If a tool is slow

The Performance list shows per-tool latency from the day's calls, slowest first, with median, 95th percentile and worst handler time. Refresh updates it. It is a diagnostic rather than something to watch day to day.