Some features in this catalog — FTR-31 (Preferred MCP Instance) among them, and any future feature that assumes filesystem, desktop-automation, or email/IMAP MCP access (FTR-42, Email Account Awareness & Signature Management, among them) — only work once a person has MCP connectors actually installed and configured on their own machine. That setup (installing software via PowerShell, editing a local config file by hand, restarting the desktop app, enabling a Windows feature and rebooting) is not something any Claude conversation performs — it genuinely requires a person at their own keyboard. prerequisites.html is a standalone page with the full, detailed, person-run steps for Filesystem MCP and Windows MCP (both required for anything in this catalog to work), plus two conditional prerequisites only relevant if they apply: a fix for Cowork mode failing to start on Windows due to missing Host Compute Service registration, and email/IMAP MCP setup for FTR-42 or any other email-dependent feature — all written from actual working setup/fix processes, not generic guesses. The page opens with a short index so a reader can see all four at a glance and jump straight to the one they need. It also has an optional, 30-second first section on adding this catalog to Claude's account-level General Instructions, so a new project recognizes it on sight without being told each time.
This page is deliberately NOT modeled as a feature or a dependency. It has no FTR number, no install command, no Assess/Ask/Write/Confirm shape, and isn't declared as a structural dependency of FTR-31 or anything else — no feature's dependency chain requires reading it first, and no install action should attempt any of its steps. If a person mentions they don't have MCP set up, that Claude has no filesystem or desktop access, or that Cowork mode won't start, the right response is to point them at this page, not to try to perform any part of it yourself. Keeping it structurally separate from the feature list is intentional, precisely so nothing in this catalog's own tooling (or an AI reading it) mistakes it for something to install automatically.