MathTrail
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What you need, how to connect MathTrail, how a lesson goes, what to do when something looks wrong, and how to reach us.

What you need

  • A Claude or ChatGPT account of your own, and a Google account. Claude is for adults, and ChatGPT needs a parent's consent for teenagers.
  • Your child needs neither: they have no account and sign in nowhere.

MathTrail keeps your child's profile in one file in your own Google Drive, and nowhere else.

Connect it in Claude

  1. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors.
  2. Press + and choose Add custom connector.
  3. Paste the address: https://mcp.mathtrail.app/mcp
  4. Press Add, then Connect, and sign in with Google. MathTrail asks to keep one file with your child's profile in your Google Drive. Allow it on Google's screen: that file is where your child's progress is saved.
  5. In a chat, press + → Connectors, switch MathTrail on and say: "Let's do a MathTrail task."

Claude's free plan allows one custom connector. A connector added on claude.ai or in Claude Desktop works in Claude's mobile apps too, on the same account.

Connect it in ChatGPT

MathTrail is not in ChatGPT's directory yet. Until it is, ChatGPT's developer mode adds it by its address on paid plans, on the web: turn developer mode on and add an app with the address above, as OpenAI describes. MathTrail is still being tested in ChatGPT.

How a lesson goes

  • The first time, the chat asks you to say you are the child's parent or tutor, then for a pseudonym for your child, never a real name, and the grade from 1 to 6. If you like, add their interests and anything to leave out of the tasks.
  • The first five tasks find where your child stands. After them, the tasks follow the answers.
  • You type, and your child taps. Ask for a task in the chat. A card appears, and in a minute or two the task arrives on it with five options; your child answers by tapping one. Hint opens a hint. Another task asks the chat for the next one, which comes below, in a new card. While your child solves, the chat writes the next task ahead, so it usually appears on the new card at once.
  • A wrong answer is explained from the mistake behind it, then step by step. If your child does not know, tell the chat so, and it explains the solution.
  • Progress: ask "How is my child doing?" to see where your child stands in each topic, what moved over the past week, a review and the mistakes that repeat. Edit there changes the profile, or ask in the chat.
  • Keep the chat's log of tool calls closed while your child solves: it shows each task together with its answer.

When something goes wrong

  • Google sends you back to a MathTrail page, "Tick the box for Google Drive". The box that lets MathTrail keep its file was left unticked. Press Back to Google and tick it: without that file there is nowhere to keep the progress.
  • MathTrail asks you to sign in again. A sign-in lasts at most 90 days. A Google account also allows about a hundred grants to one app at a time, so after many connections the oldest one stops working. Signing in again fixes both.
  • Claude will not add another connector. Its free plan has room for one custom connector: remove another one first.
  • The card waits a minute or two. The chat's model writes each task, and MathTrail checks it before your child sees it. The first task of a lesson takes that long; the next ones are written while your child solves, and come at once when they are ready. The chat's usual depth of thinking keeps the wait short: at its deepest, the model thinks over each task for a minute or more. A task the checks refuse is written again, with three attempts in all; if all three fail, the chat says so, and you can ask for another.
  • The card says "There are no more new tasks today". A child gets up to 20 new tasks a day, and the day also closes after five requests in which no task could be written. The day starts at 00:00 UTC. The progress and the last task stay available.
  • Claude puts "Another task" in the message box under "Use caution before running this prompt". That is the card's request waiting for you: press Enter to send it.
  • Claude asks whether to allow MathTrail to save the profile. Saving replaces what the profile held before, so Claude asks first. Allow it when you asked for the change.
  • No card appears. Some chats show no cards. The chat then gives the task in words with its options A to E, and you type the letter of your child's answer.
  • The profile cannot be read, or it is in Drive's bin. MathTrail says so in the chat and changes nothing. Restore the file from the bin, or let MathTrail put back its latest readable version or start a new profile, as the guide to your child's data explains.
  • A task looks wrong. It may be: the program checks what it can, and the meaning is checked by the model itself. Tell us what the task said.

Your child's data

Everything MathTrail knows about your child is one file, mathtrail-profile.json, in a MathTrail folder of your Google Drive. How to download it, disconnect MathTrail or delete everything is in the guide to your child's data. What is kept, where and for how long is in the privacy policy.

Contact us

  • Help, and questions about your child's data: write to altedtech.info@gmail.com.
  • A mistake in a task, or an idea: write to the same address, or open an issue on GitHub. Issues are public, so put no name, photograph or other detail of your child in one.
  • A security problem: report it privately through GitHub's security advisories, as the project's security policy asks.

We read everything and answer as soon as we can, but there is no promised response time.