When Sidekick can't reach your AI Assistant

Sidekick can’t reach your AI Assistant at all. There are two common causes, and both are quick to check.

(Older versions of Sidekick phrase this message as “Make sure your AI Assistant is running.”)

1. Is your AI Assistant open?

Look for your AI Assistant (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, etc.) in your dock, system tray, or task bar. If it isn’t running, open it — Sidekick will reconnect on its own within a few seconds and switch to “Connected”.

2. Is the Sidekick extension installed in your AI Assistant?

This is the step people miss most often: the InDesign plugin is only half of Sidekick. The other half is an extension that lives inside your AI Assistant, and without it there’s nothing for the InDesign panel to connect to — even with the AI Assistant open.

For Claude Desktop: open Settings → Extensions and check that Sidekick for InDesign is listed and enabled. If it isn’t there, follow the install guide to add it.

Still stuck? If both checks pass and the panel still shows this message, another app on your computer might be occupying port 6001 — the network port Sidekick relies on — and blocking the connection. Restarting your computer is the simplest fix. If that doesn’t help either, contact support — include which AI Assistant you’re using and what its extension settings show, and we’ll help you figure it out.