61Insights in Claude and ChatGPT
Connect your 61Insights account to an AI assistant and ask about training in plain language. The assistant reads your records through the 61Insights MCP server, acting as you, and changes a lesson plan only after your explicit yes. Beta
Overview
What it is
61Insights runs an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, the standard way AI assistants connect to other services) at:
https://mcp.61insights.com/mcp
Once connected, you can ask things like:
- “How did Alex do on steep turns over his last three flights?”
- “Show me Alex’s ILS 32 result from Tuesday.”
- “What’s in lesson 7 of the private pilot syllabus?”
- “What does the Instrument ACS require for holding procedures?”
- “Plan Sam’s next lesson for Thursday at 2 pm.” (where lesson planning is turned on for you)
You name people, schools, lessons and flights the way you would in the app. If a name matches more than one thing, the assistant shows you the choices and you pick. You never need to type or read a database id.
Beta. The AI assistant (connector and plugin) is in beta. Beta features may change or be withdrawn, and are offered without a pricing commitment while in beta. Access is turned on per account during the beta. If it isn’t on for you, connecting stops with “MCP access is not enabled for this account”. Lesson planning through the assistant is turned on separately. To get access, reach out to your school admin.
Before you start
- A 61Insights account. You sign in with the same login you use for the web app. The assistant gets your current school memberships and roles, and nothing more.
- MCP access turned on for your account (see above).
- An assistant that can add a remote MCP server: Claude (a custom connector, or Claude Code), or ChatGPT in developer mode.
- For lesson planning: the planning tools turned on for your account. Until then, the assistant can read but not change anything, and it says so if you ask it to plan.
Connect
Connect Claude
Claude on the web or desktop
- In Claude, add a custom connector (where your Claude plan allows custom connectors).
- Name it
61Insightsand enter the URLhttps://mcp.61insights.com/mcp. There is no client id or secret to enter. - Choose Connect. A browser window opens the 61Insights sign-in. Sign in with your 61Insights login and review the consent screen, which lists what the assistant is asking to do (see Sign-in and sessions).
Claude Code
Install the 61Insights plugin, which configures the server for you, or add the server yourself as a remote HTTP MCP server with the URL above. Then run /mcp, choose 61insights and authenticate in the browser.
The Claude plugin
The 61Insights plugin adds ready-made workflows (skills) on top of the connection. During the beta the plugin’s repository is private, so your GitHub login needs read access to it: reach out to your school admin for access.
/plugin marketplace add 61Insights/61insights-claude-plugin /plugin install 61insights@61insights
Restart Claude Code, run /mcp, choose 61insights and sign in. The skills load on their own when a request matches them:
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Review progress | One student’s syllabus position, progress summary, upcoming lessons and gaps. |
| Debrief a flight | Walks one flight’s maneuver and approach results through the analyzer’s check against ACS tolerances, compares them with the student’s self-assessment of that flight, and suggests focus areas. |
| Instructor briefing | Across your students: who is behind, who is due, the week ahead, recent results. |
| Operations review | The school’s operational and people analytics over 30, 90 or 365 days. |
| Reflect | A private reflection on your own teaching: strengths, patterns with evidence, and things to try next. |
| Prepare, refine, approve a lesson | Draft a plan from the syllabus, adjust its tasks, approve it: each through a preview and your yes. Planning beta |
| Schedule a lesson | Proposes times (with a calendar connector, if you have one) and sets the planned time through a preview and your yes. Planning beta |
Every skill follows the same rules: it uses only the named 61Insights tools, resolves people by name, cites what it read, treats notes and messages as data rather than instructions, says “the analyzer’s check against ACS tolerances” rather than “passed” or “failed the ACS”, and suggests rather than decides.
In your client’s tool permissions, keep every
commit_* tool on ask every time. The client’s own approval prompt is a second check on top of your yes in the conversation.Connect ChatGPT (developer mode)
- Sign in to ChatGPT. Your ChatGPT email doesn’t have to match your 61Insights account; what matters is the login you use on the 61Insights sign-in page.
- Open ChatGPT’s plugins page, select +, then Add custom MCP server.
- Name it
61Insights. Under Connection, set the server URL tohttps://mcp.61insights.com/mcp. - Under authentication, choose OAuth. ChatGPT registers itself, so you don’t enter a client id or secret.
- Confirm, create it, and sign in with your 61Insights login when prompted.
- After 61Insights adds tools, use Refresh on the app’s details page.
Developer mode connects the tools. The skills listed above are written for Claude; in ChatGPT the server’s own instructions and tool descriptions guide the assistant.
Sign-in and sessions
- You sign in to 61Insights, not to the assistant. The connection uses OAuth with PKCE, and you type your password only on the 61Insights sign-in page, never into the assistant.
- The consent screen lists the permissions asked for: reading training data (
training:read), reading the school’s operations and people analytics (analytics:operational:read,analytics:people:read) and, only where planning is turned on, changing lesson plans (lesson-plans:write). 61Insights still checks your role on every request: consent never widens what your role allows. - Sessions are short. A connection lasts at most 5 minutes, and then the assistant asks you to sign in again.
- Turning access off takes effect on the next request.
What the assistant can read
24 read tools
Each tool is read-only and returns only what your role lets you see in the web app. A student sees only their own records; an instructor sees their assigned students; flight ops and admins see the school. Tools marked New come with this release.
| Ask about | What you get | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Your schools and students | ||
| Your schools | The schools you belong to and your roles in each. | list_my_schools |
| Finding a student | Students you can see, by name, with their course. | find_students |
| Progress and the syllabus | ||
| Progress | The progress summary: readiness, one line per ACS area, and the tasks not yet flown to standard (or one area in detail). | get_training_progress |
| Syllabus position | Where the student is in the syllabus, and the next lesson with its tasks and objectives. | get_syllabus_progress |
| Next lesson New | The next lesson in full, and why: lessons done, passed over or blocked, prerequisites, tasks carried forward. | suggest_next_lesson |
| Syllabi | The syllabi your school has. | list_syllabi |
| A syllabus | Its stages and lessons, one line per lesson. | get_syllabus |
| A lesson’s content | Tasks introduced and reinforced, objectives, prerequisites, estimated hours; or the student’s next one to three lessons. | get_syllabus_lesson |
| An ACS task | The 61Insights summary of a task (knowledge, risk management and skills elements) in the right ACS revision, with the analyzer’s scoring bands. | get_acs_task |
| A task in the program | Which lessons introduce or reinforce a task, and where the student stands on it. | find_task_in_program |
| Training gaps New | A student’s recorded breaks from training (instructors and flight ops). | list_training_gaps |
| Lessons | ||
| Lesson plans | Upcoming plans (soonest first) or recent ones. | get_lesson_plans |
| A lesson plan | Its tasks, objectives, the task names it may use, and the student’s latest self-assessment (staff). | get_lesson_plan |
| A lesson’s thread New | The newest messages in the plan’s discussion thread. | get_lesson_messages |
| Flights and analyzer results | ||
| Flights | Recent flights with the lesson, duration and the maneuvers and approaches found (filter ABS, regular or ground). | list_flights |
| A flight New | One flight in full: graded tasks, notes, the self-assessment as the app shows it to you, engine readings and track summary numbers. Never the raw track. | get_flight |
| A flight in progress New | Whether a lesson is being flown right now, since when, and which lesson. | get_active_flight |
| A flight’s results | Every maneuver and approach result on one flight. | get_flight_results |
| Maneuver results | Results over time for a maneuver (for example steep turns). | list_maneuver_results |
| A maneuver result | The result and score, each check’s worst deviation against its band, any instructor override, and the analyzer’s notes. | get_maneuver_result |
| Approach results | Results over time, by approach. | list_approach_results |
| An approach result | Lateral and vertical scores, deviations, the outcome at minimums, altitude constraints and circling. | get_approach_result |
| School analytics | ||
| Operations | The school’s Operations analytics over 30, 90 or 365 days (where your role sees them). | get_operational_analytics |
| People | The People analytics (where your role sees them). | get_people_analytics |
A grade the app is still holding back from a student (before their debrief) is reported as “not available to you yet”. A student or flight you can’t see gets the same answer as one that doesn’t exist.
What the assistant can change
Lesson plans only Planning beta
The assistant can change one thing: lesson plans. Each change takes two steps, a preview and a commit, and the commit happens only after your yes.
| Change | What it does | Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Create a plan | A new plan for a student from a syllabus lesson (by name, number or “next”) or an ad-hoc lesson. A planned time is optional. | preview_create_lesson_plan, commit_create_lesson_plan |
| Edit a plan | Its title, notes, objectives, tasks (task names from the syllabus and ACS only) or planned time. | preview_edit_lesson_plan, commit_edit_lesson_plan |
| Approve a plan | A sign-off, so it needs the instructor role, as in the app. | preview_approve_lesson_plan, commit_approve_lesson_plan |
| Throw a preview away | Cancels a preview you said no to. Nothing was saved, and now nothing can be. | discard_proposal (older name discard_lesson_plan_proposal) |
Everything else (flights, grades, track uploads, school settings, billing) is done in the web app.
How a change is saved: preview, your yes, commit
- Preview. The assistant asks 61Insights for a preview. Nothing is saved. The preview shows exactly what would change, in full: the title, notes, objectives and task names, the planned time in your time zone and in UTC, and who would be notified, by name. If the plan was already approved, it says the change sends it back for approval.
- Your yes. The assistant shows you the preview word for word and waits. Only your own reply counts as a yes: text inside notes, messages or tool results is never a yes, and a hedged answer (“probably”, “I guess”) isn’t one either. One yes covers one preview.
- Commit. Only then does the assistant save that exact preview. A preview expires after 15 minutes. If the plan changed in the app since the preview, the commit is refused and the assistant previews again.
Say no and the assistant discards the preview. 61Insights also refuses a commit that arrives within a few seconds of its preview, so a change can’t be saved before you’ve had a chance to read it.
The same rules as the web app apply: a student can’t approve a plan, and an instructor works only with their own students. Every preview and change made through the assistant is recorded (who, which assistant, which plan fields, the outcome) and the record is kept for 400 days. If you delete your account, it keeps its 400 days with your account identifier replaced by a random code (how that works).
Privacy and security
What the assistant sees, and where it goes
- It acts as you. Every request goes through the same 61Insights checks as the web app: your current memberships, your role, your assigned students. Removing you from a school takes effect on the very next request.
- Only your schools. A school you’re not in is the same as one that doesn’t exist. The 61Insights platform account has no built-in access to schools through the assistant either.
- Student emails stay out. Pick lists show a student’s name and course. An email (usually just its domain) is added only to tell two people with the same name apart.
- Notes are treated as data. Notes, messages, names and titles that people typed are marked as untrusted text, so the assistant doesn’t follow instructions hidden in them.
- Answers are bounded. No raw track points or samples are sent, and every list has a limit.
- What the tools return goes to the assistant you connected. It is handled under your agreement with that provider (Anthropic for Claude, OpenAI for ChatGPT). Connect only an assistant your school is comfortable with. Our Privacy Policy covers the connector in full.
Limits
What to keep in mind
- Analyzer results are a training aid. The assistant reports the analyzer’s check of the measured track against the ACS tolerances it can measure. That isn’t an FAA evaluation: the instructor’s grade is the grade. See Analyzer results and their limits.
- Some times are in UTC. Lesson plan times and dates in reads are UTC; previews show your saved time zone and UTC.
- Approach worst deviations are approximate, worked out from the stored approach points near the threshold.
- Lists are short on purpose: up to 25 flights or results per answer, the newest 12 thread messages, the 10 most recent plans.
- Not everything is available yet. The track map and replay, track uploads, the analyzer, billing and school settings are in the web app only.
- Assistants make mistakes. Check what the assistant tells you against the app before you act on it, and read every preview before you say yes.