If you have only used a chat in the browser, this page explains the difference and helps you pick an app that can work with ATAS.
How an agent differs from a chat
A regular chat answers with text. You copy the answer and do everything else yourself.
An agent also acts. It sets up charts and indicators, draws levels, writes indicators and reviews your trading journal. For crypto it also reads bars and the footprint and computes statistics from ATAS data. You describe the task in plain words, for example "Where was the POC yesterday on BTCUSDT?", and it calls the ATAS functions it needs by itself and answers with numbers from your chart.
ATAS gives the agent access through AI Connect. This is an MCP server inside the platform: it runs while ATAS is open and listens only to your computer. The AI itself stays with the provider you chose. How this works and where the data goes is shown in the diagram on How the agent works with ATAS.
A chat in the browser cannot connect to ATAS: AI Connect works only with an agent app on your computer.
What to choose
ATAS works with an agent installed on the same computer:
| Agent | Good for | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Desktop | A regular chat app, if you are not a programmer | claude.com/download |
| Codex | A chat app that can run code for calculations | ChatGPT app with Codex |
| Claude Code | Working from a terminal, code for calculations | Install Claude Code |
| Cursor | If you already write code in this editor | cursor.com/download |
| VS Code with GitHub Copilot | The same for VS Code | VS Code and GitHub Copilot |
For tests on history, the agent must be able to run code.
Words you will come across
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Provider | The company whose AI you use. Your conversation with the agent goes through it |
| Tokens used up | The units the provider uses to measure how much you exchange with the model |
| Token in the connection window | Your password for connecting the agent to ATAS. It has nothing to do with usage |
| Skill | An instruction text for the agent for repeated work |
| Script Lab | The script indicator editor in ATAS |
| Compute with code | The agent writes a small program and takes the result from it, instead of working it out in its head |