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What is the Model Context Protocol?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard from Anthropic that lets AI apps connect to external data and tools. It splits the world into clients — AI apps like Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor — and servers, which expose tools and data to those clients. Hyperspell ships an MCP server so any MCP-capable agent can query and write to your company brain. You don’t build any MCP plumbing — you point your client at Hyperspell and the brain shows up as a handful of tools.

Two ways to connect

Both render the same tools — an agent’s expectations transfer between them. The only difference is where the standing brain summary is read from: the hosted server serves it straight from Hyperspell (no daemon, no sync), while the local server runs via the sync daemon and reads the daemon-synced copy off disk.

Tools

Every Hyperspell MCP server exposes the core brain tools: Plus management tools for inspecting and administering the brain: Guarded tools never act on the first call: without confirm=true they return a preview of what would change, so an agent can show it to you and only proceed once you approve. They also carry MCP destructiveHint annotations, so clients like Claude ask for permission before running them at all. It also provides one prompt, ask_brain, that scaffolds a brain query for the client.
Results are compact by defaultask returns {answer, citations, errors, query_id} and search returns citation-sized documents, so a multi-MB Slack or Granola thread doesn’t blow up your agent’s context. Pass full=true on ask/search for the raw payload.
The *_context tools read the standing brain summary — the pre-synthesized document tree — so an agent can read the summary first and only reach for ask/search for what it doesn’t cover. On the hosted server they serve the summary straight from Hyperspell (no daemon, no sync); on the local server they read the daemon-synced copy off disk, offline, with no API call, and additionally expose it as hyperbrain://context resources.

Hosted server

The hosted server is mounted on the Hyperspell API at:
It speaks MCP Streamable HTTP and authenticates as an OAuth 2.1 Resource Server — it validates the token on every request and scopes the call to your app and user. There are two ways to authenticate: log in (OAuth, user-scoped) or an API key (app-scoped). Add Hyperspell as a custom connector in Claude — no API key required:
  1. In claude.ai (or Claude Desktop), open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
  2. Enter https://api.hyperspell.com/mcp and click Add.
  3. Claude opens a Hyperspell login — sign in with your Hyperspell dashboard account and approve the connection.
The connection is user-scoped: queries, writes, and connection management all act as you, within your workspace. User-scoped tools like list_connections and revoke_connection work out of the box.
On Claude Team and Enterprise plans the flow is two-phase, and no login happens at the admin’s add step — that’s normal:
  1. Workspace Owner (once): Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom → Web → enter the URL above (organizations using pre-shared OAuth credentials add them under Advanced settings).
  2. Each member: Customize → Connectors → find the connector (labeled “Custom”) → click Connect → the Hyperspell login opens here, per member.

Connect from ChatGPT (log in)

ChatGPT connects to the same hosted server as a custom MCP connector, with an OAuth sign-in — no API key required:
  1. In ChatGPT, open Settings → Connectors (shown as Apps on some plans).
  2. Add a custom MCP server and enter https://api.hyperspell.com/mcp.
  3. Complete the OAuth sign-in with your Hyperspell dashboard account to authorize the connection.
Like the Claude connector, the connection is user-scoped — every call acts as you, within your workspace.
ChatGPT’s connector sign-in relies on the OAuth client registration Hyperspell is rolling out. Depending on your workspace this is either Dynamic Client Registration (ChatGPT registers itself automatically) or a pre-shared client_id you paste into ChatGPT’s advanced connector settings. If the OAuth step doesn’t complete yet, connect from Claude (web) or use an API key in the meantime.

Connect with an API key

For server-side agents, CI, and clients that send bearer headers (e.g. Cursor, Claude Code), authenticate with your Hyperspell API key instead:
An API key authenticates app-scoped (no specific user). Tools that need a user identity — like list_connections — return a clear user_identity_required error when called with an app-only key. To act as a specific user, log in via OAuth instead.

Local server (via the sync daemon)

If you run the Hyperspell sync daemon, it installs a local MCP server and registers it with Claude Desktop for you — no manual config. The daemon keeps a local copy of your brain summary in ~/.hyperspell, and the local server exposes it through the offline *_context tools alongside the standard tools above. This is the best option when you want Claude Desktop to read a fast local summary first and fall back to the full index only when needed. The daemon writes an entry like this into claude_desktop_config.json automatically:
The config file lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS and %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows. The local server reads its credential from HYPERSPELL_API_KEY in its environment — the same key the CLI uses — so Desktop users never have to run a separate login.