# Build with the AI model you already use

> Substrait does not replace your people's AI model. A plugin for Claude Code, the Claude desktop app and Cursor connects it to Substrait, and a scaffold fitted to your company shapes what it produces.

URL: https://substrait.build/capabilities/build-with-your-own-ai-model/  
Last updated: 2026-11-06

Your builders keep the AI model they use today. A Substrait plugin connects Claude Code, the Claude desktop app and Cursor to Substrait, and a scaffold fitted to your company makes what they build ready for production from the first prompt.

## How it works

**The plugin.**
Substrait ships a plugin for Claude Code, the Claude desktop app and Cursor.
Working with their AI model, a builder links a project to Substrait, browses the data they may use, and puts the tool live.

**The scaffold.**
Substrait's forward-deployed team sets up a scaffold for your company before anyone builds.
The scaffold carries your sign-on, your secrets handling and your deploy and rollback paths.
Every tool built on it inherits them.
The scaffold is versioned, and Substrait shows when a tool was built on an older version.
A running tool never changes until its owner deploys it again.

**The scaffold knows nothing about your data.**
The scaffold gives structure and guardrails, and nothing about which systems exist.
Which data a builder may use is decided in Substrait's governance, never in the scaffold.
A leaked scaffold therefore exposes no map of your data.

**A browser workspace.**
A person with nothing installed can open a hosted build environment in the browser, with credentials already in place, and build and deploy in the same session.

## Which AI models

Substrait governs what arrives, whichever AI model wrote it.
Your organisation decides which AI models its people may use; that is your policy, not a lock-in to one vendor.

## Related

- [One click to live, through the security check](https://substrait.build/capabilities/one-command-go-live/): A builder sends a tool to Substrait with one command, through their AI model, and goes live with one click. Substrait promotes the exact build tested in dev to production, only through the security check.
- [Guided building: every builder knows what to do next](https://substrait.build/capabilities/guided-building/): Substrait coaches each builder inside the platform, from their first sign-in to their first tool in production, at the depth that fits what they already know. The Builder Academy is a separate, optional human service.
- [Templates: Substrait's best practice, wired to your company](https://substrait.build/capabilities/seeded-templates/): Substrait builds templates of common business software on best practice from its own experience. Every installation starts with them, already connected to the company's cloud, sign-on, identity, data and design. A template is copied and owned, never locked to a central version.
- [One catalogue of the APIs and data your tools can use](https://substrait.build/capabilities/api-library/): Substrait's API Library lists your company's APIs, the tools your people built and your warehouse data sets. Builders browse it in conversation with their AI model, and see only what their groups allow.