Connecting Claude and Other AI Tools (MCP)
Qik runs an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for every organisation. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or another MCP-capable AI tool to it, and that tool can read, create, update and manage your organisation's data and apps on your behalf, under your own login.
Why connect your own AI?
- Work where you already work — ask questions about your people, events and forms, or build things, from the AI tool you use every day.
- No Qik credits — using your own AI over MCP is included in your plan. Your AI provider bills you for its own usage as normal. (The built-in assistant, Qikbot, uses Qik credits; see The Qik AI Assistant.)
- Same rules as the dashboard — the connected tool only ever has your access.
Find your server URL
Open the Connect to MCP page in the dashboard. You can reach it from the "Power up your productivity with MCP" link on the dashboard home page, from Connect your AI (MCP) in the mobile menu, or from Connect your own AI on the Credits tab of Billing.
The page shows Your server URL, in this form:
https://api.qik.dev/mcp/<your-organisation-key>
Click Copy and paste it wherever your AI tool asks for a server or connector URL. Each organisation has its own URL; if you belong to several organisations, connect each one separately.
Set it up in your client
The Connect to MCP page has a tab for each common client with the exact steps and a ready-to-copy command or config.
Claude Desktop or claude.ai
- Open Settings → Connectors.
- Click Add custom connector.
- Give it a name (for example your organisation's name) and paste your server URL.
- Save, then click Connect and sign in to your Qik organisation when prompted.
Claude Code
Run the claude mcp add --transport http … command shown on the page in your terminal, then run /mcp inside Claude Code to sign in.
ChatGPT
Custom connectors are available on ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans on the web. In ChatGPT's settings, add a custom MCP server (you may need to turn on Developer mode first), set authentication to OAuth, paste your server URL, and sign in to Qik when prompted. Then enable the connector in a chat. On Business or Enterprise workspaces, a workspace admin may need to allow custom connectors first.
Cursor and other editors
Copy the JSON snippet from the page into your editor's MCP config file, reload, and authorise the connection when prompted.
Signing in and approving access
Connections use OAuth, so you never paste a password or API key into the AI tool. The first time you connect:
- Your AI tool opens a browser window to Qik.
- Sign in with your normal Qik login if you aren't already signed in.
- The Connect application screen names the organisation the tool will get access to. If you belong to more than one, click change to choose another.
- Click Approve to allow it, or Cancel to refuse.
The connection is tied to the one organisation you approved. A connection made for one organisation's URL can't be used at another organisation's URL. Your sign-in renews automatically in the background, so you won't need to approve again each session.
What the AI tool can do
Qik's MCP server gives the AI tool a large set of tools covering most of the platform, including:
- searching, listing, counting and summarising any content you can see, including profiles, events, check-ins, form submissions and your own content types
- creating and updating records, including bulk updates with progress tracking
- building forms, content types, workflows, smart lists, actions, listeners and time triggers
- building and editing websites and apps, then previewing and publishing them
- email campaigns, text messages and rosters
- explaining access ("why can't this person see that?") and managing roles and logins
- exporting data to CSV files
To keep things fast, the tool starts with a core set and searches for more specialised tools when it needs them. If your AI says it can't do something, ask it to search Qik's tools first.
When the AI refers to a record, it can give you a link of the form https://app.qik.dev/goto/<record id> that opens that record in the dashboard.
The connected tool also reads your organisation's AI Assistant Preamble (in Organisation Settings) and your personal notes in User Settings → AI Assistant, the same as Qikbot does.
Permissions
A connected AI tool acts as you. Everything it does goes through your own login, roles and scopes, so it can see and change exactly what you can in the dashboard and nothing more. Changes to your roles take effect for the AI tool straight away. Records it creates or edits are recorded as done by you.
Unlike Qikbot, Qik doesn't show its own approval cards in external AI tools. Qik labels each tool as read-only, additive or destructive, and most AI clients use those labels to decide when to ask you before running something. Check your client's settings for how it handles tool approvals, and review what it plans to do before allowing anything that sends messages, deletes records or changes access.
Only connect tools you trust. An AI tool connected with an administrator's login can do anything that administrator can. Consider giving people who use AI tools a role that matches what they actually need. See Roles and Permissions.
Disconnecting
- Remove it from your AI tool — delete or disconnect the connector in the tool's own settings.
- Remove a person's access — when an administrator revokes a person's login to the organisation, their connected AI tools lose access too. See Managing Users and Access Passes.