PerspectPerspectDocs
Go to Admin
View as Markdown

Connecting Claude Desktop to Your Site via MCP

Perspect exposes a per-site Model Context Protocol (MCP) server at https://perspect.com/mcp/{site}. Connecting Claude Desktop to it gives Claude direct, authenticated access to your site's content, products, pages, newsletters, and more — no copy-pasting API responses required.

This guide walks through registering an OAuth client, adding the connector in Claude Desktop, and completing the first authentication flow.

Prerequisites

  • A Perspect organization and site
  • An MCP API key for your site (Settings → API Keys in the admin; select MCP as the key type)
  • Claude Desktop installed (any recent version)
  • Admin access to your Perspect organization (required to register OAuth clients)

1. Register an OAuth client

Claude Desktop authenticates via OAuth 2.0 with PKCE. You need to pre-register a client so Perspect accepts its authorization requests.

In the Perspect admin, go to Settings → OAuth Clients and click New client.

Field Value
Name Claude Desktop (or any label you'll recognize)
Redirect URIs https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback

After saving, copy the Client ID — you'll need it in the next step. It will look something like perspect_claude_desktop.

2. Add the connector in Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop has a built-in Connectors UI for remote MCP servers — no config file editing required.

  1. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings → Connectors.
  2. Click Add custom connector.
  3. Enter your site's MCP server URL:
    https://perspect.com/mcp/your-site-name
    Replace your-site-name with your site slug (visible in the admin URL and in Settings → General).
  4. Expand Advanced settings and enter the Client ID you copied in step 1.

The Client ID field is important — without it, Claude Desktop skips the OAuth consent screen and the connection won't be tied to your Perspect account.

  1. Click Add.

Claude Desktop will immediately attempt to connect and redirect you to the OAuth consent screen.

3. Authenticate

The first time Claude Desktop connects, it will redirect you through Perspect's OAuth consent screen.

  1. Claude Desktop opens https://perspect.com/oauth/authorize in your browser.
  2. Enter the email address for your Perspect account.
  3. Enter your MCP API key (the sk_mcp_… key you created in the prerequisites).
  4. Review the requested scopes and click Authorize.

You're redirected back to Claude Desktop, which exchanges the authorization code for an access token and stores it locally. Subsequent sessions reuse the token (and silently refresh it) — you won't be prompted again unless the token is revoked or expires.

4. Verify the connection

In Claude Desktop, start a new conversation and ask something site-specific:

"List the most recently published pages on my Perspect site."

If the MCP server is connected, Claude will call the appropriate tool and return real data from your site. If you see a "Couldn't reach the MCP server" error, check:

  • The connector URL matches exactly https://perspect.com/mcp/{site} with no trailing slash.
  • The Client ID in the connector's Advanced settings matches the client ID registered in step 1.
  • The redirect URI https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback is registered on that client — an "Invalid redirect URI" error on the consent screen means it's missing.
  • Your MCP API key is active and has not been revoked (Settings → API Keys).

Scopes and permissions

Perspect issues fine-grained scopes during authorization. The consent screen lists the full set; at minimum Claude Desktop requests mcp.read and mcp.write. If your API key was created with restricted permissions, the resulting OAuth token is bounded by those restrictions as well — the OAuth grant cannot exceed the key's permissions.

To tighten access, create a dedicated read-only MCP API key and use that during the OAuth flow instead of a full-access key.

Revoking access

To disconnect Claude Desktop from your site, go to Settings → OAuth Clients in the admin, find your client, and click Revoke. This immediately invalidates all tokens issued to that client. You can also remove the connector in Claude Desktop under Settings → Connectors to stop it from attempting to reconnect.

Where to go next

  • MCP tool reference — the full list of tools Claude can call on your site, with parameters and example outputs.
  • API Keys — creating and scoping keys for different integrations.
  • A/B Experiments — running experiments via Claude using the MCP server.