Connect Ask Benny to Claude, ChatGPT and other AI apps

Ask Benny Connect lets you use your business data inside Claude, ChatGPT, Grok and other AI apps that support MCP. Once connected, you can ask your assistant things like "what did the caller at 3 pm need?", "find Dana's text thread", "book the water-heater assessment on Thursday" or "explain how my call plan routes urgent calls", and the assistant works with your Ask Benny business through a small, permissioned set of tools.

For a visual, app-by-app walkthrough with copy buttons, see askbenny.ca/mcp.

The server address is https://connect.askbenny.ca/mcp. It uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP) over HTTPS and standard OAuth sign-in, and it is the same server for every business: which business the assistant sees is decided at sign-in, never by anything the assistant types.

Before you start

• You need an Ask Benny account that belongs to the business you want to connect.
• An administrator must turn on Connect AI apps in Settings → Features. Until then, sign-in completes but every request answers that Connect is not enabled. Do not turn it on if your calls or texts routinely contain health information.
• Your business needs an active subscription.
• Some tools depend on other features being on for your business: the text-message tools need the SMS inbox, and the booking tools need Benny Bookings. Tools for features that are off report "not enabled" instead of failing silently.

Connecting

note

Ask Benny is not listed in the Claude or ChatGPT directories yet; the listings are on the way. Until then, connect your app yourself with the steps below. It takes about five minutes and you need an administrator of your Ask Benny business for step 1.

Connecting has three steps:

1. An administrator creates a connection in the Ask Benny dashboard and copies its server URL, client ID and client secret.
2. Someone adds Ask Benny to the app (Claude, ChatGPT, Grok and so on) with those three values.
3. Each person signs in to Ask Benny from the app and chooses the business.

Step 1: Create a connection in Ask Benny

Only an organization administrator can do this.

1. Sign in to the Ask Benny dashboard and open Settings → AI assistants.
2. Under Connect an app yourself, select Add a connection.
3. Choose the app you are connecting and give the connection a name, for example "Claude – front desk". The name appears on the Ask Benny sign-in screen, so people can tell which connection they are approving.
4. Select Create connection and copy the three values shown:
   • Server URL: https://connect.askbenny.ca/mcp
   • Client ID
   • Client secret

Copy the client secret right away

It is shown only once and Ask Benny does not keep a copy. Treat it like a password: paste it only into the app's own settings, never into a chat, support ticket or shared document. If you lose it or it is exposed, revoke the connection and create a new one.

Each connection works only for your business and only from the app you chose. Create one connection per app (one for Claude, another for Cursor and so on), so you can revoke one without affecting the others. A business can have up to 5 active connections.

Step 2: Add Ask Benny to your app

Follow the section for your app. Wherever the app asks for an OAuth client ID and client secret, paste the values from step 1.

Claude (web, desktop and mobile)

On a Free, Pro or Max plan:

1. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors and select Add custom connector.
2. Enter the name Ask Benny and paste the server URL.
3. Open Advanced settings and paste the OAuth client ID and OAuth client secret. If your dialog has two steps instead, choose Sign in now, then Use your own OAuth client.
4. Select Add, then Connect, and continue with step 3 below.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an Owner adds the connector once for everyone:

1. The Owner opens Organization settings → Connectors, selects Add → Custom (choose Web if asked) and enters the same server URL, client ID and client secret, then selects Add.
2. Each member opens Customize → Connectors, finds Ask Benny with the Custom label and selects Connect.

The Claude Free plan allows one custom connector. Claude cannot change a connector's OAuth details after it is added: to use new credentials, remove the connector and add it again.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT connects custom apps in developer mode. Which plans include it varies, and on Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces an admin must allow it first.

1. In ChatGPT settings, turn on Developer mode.
2. Add a custom MCP app (in the apps or plugins area, choose to create an app or add a custom MCP server).
3. Name it Ask Benny, paste the server URL and choose OAuth for authentication.
4. In the advanced OAuth settings, choose a user-defined OAuth client and paste the client ID and client secret.
5. Create the app, connect it and continue with step 3 below.

Grok

1. Go to grok.com/connectors, select New Connector, then Custom.
2. Paste the server URL.
3. In the advanced OAuth settings, paste the client ID and client secret. If Grok asks for a token authentication method, choose one that sends the client secret, not "none".
4. Save, connect and continue with step 3 below.

Grok support is new. If Grok offers no way to enter a client secret, the connection cannot complete yet; let us know at info@askbenny.ca.

Claude Code

Run this in your terminal, replacing the client ID:

claude mcp add --transport http ask-benny https://connect.askbenny.ca/mcp --client-id YOUR_CLIENT_ID --client-secret --callback-port 33420

Paste the client secret when Claude Code asks for it. Then run /mcp in Claude Code, choose Ask Benny and sign in. Keep --callback-port 33420: the connection accepts sign-ins only on that port.

Cursor

Add Ask Benny to your Cursor mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ask-benny": {
      "url": "https://connect.askbenny.ca/mcp",
      "auth": {
        "CLIENT_ID": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
        "CLIENT_SECRET": "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then connect Ask Benny from Cursor's MCP settings and sign in. Keep this file out of shared repositories, since it contains the secret.

VS Code

1. Run MCP: Add Server, choose HTTP and paste the server URL, or add it to mcp.json:

   {
     "servers": {
       "ask-benny": { "type": "http", "url": "https://connect.askbenny.ca/mcp" }
     }
   }

2. When VS Code asks, enter the client ID, then the client secret, and sign in.

Other apps (Muse and others)

Any app that can add a remote MCP server with your own OAuth client ID and client secret can connect:

1. In step 1, choose Another app and paste the callback URL (also called redirect URL) that your app shows in its connector settings. You can add up to five.
2. In your app, add a remote MCP server with the server URL, choose OAuth with your own client, and paste the client ID and client secret.
3. Connect and continue with step 3 below.

Apps that can only register themselves automatically, or that cannot send a client secret, are not supported yet. That currently includes Meta Muse: we have not confirmed that Muse can send a client secret. Pasting only the server address into an app does not work either; the app shows a registration or authorization error instead of the Ask Benny sign-in page.

Step 3: Sign in and choose your business

1. When the app opens the Ask Benny sign-in page, sign in with your own Ask Benny account.
2. If you belong to more than one business, choose the business that created the connection. A connection works only for that business; choosing another one is refused.
3. Review the permissions (listed below) and approve them.

Connections are per user: everyone who uses the app signs in with their own account. A connection stays bound to the business chosen at sign-in, and removing someone's membership in the business ends their access.

Troubleshooting

What you see	What to do
A registration or "invalid client" error before the Ask Benny sign-in page	The client ID or secret is missing or mistyped. Remove the connector, add it again and paste all three values from step 1.
"This connection belongs to a different business"	You chose another business at sign-in. Reconnect and choose the business that created the connection.
"This connection was revoked"	An administrator revoked it. Create a new connection in step 1 and add it to the app again.
"Connect is not enabled for this business"	An administrator turns on Connect AI apps in Settings → Features.
The sign-in page says the redirect URL is not allowed	The connection was created for a different app. Create a connection for the app you are using (or, for Another app, paste the exact callback URL your app shows).

What the assistant can do

Each capability is a separate permission. The assistant only gets what you approved at sign-in, and every request checks that you are still a member, that Connect and the required features are still on, and that the connection has not been disconnected.

Permission	What it allows
Business overview	Business name, phone numbers, hours, agent status, connected integrations, and which capabilities are available to this connection. Never plans, prices or upgrade offers.
Calls	Search recent calls and read a call's summary, transcript, caller, tags and staff notes.
Call notes	Create the first staff note on a call that has none. Existing notes are never changed or overwritten.
Contacts	Find a contact by name, phone or email and read their contact details and call history summary.
Text messages	List text conversations and read a thread. Reading never marks anything as read or sends anything.
Appointments (read)	Bookable services, staff and intake questions; available times; existing appointments.
Appointments (book and cancel)	Book an offered time for a client with their intake answers, and cancel an appointment. See the effects below.
Call plan	Read your saved visual call plan as a complete graph. Nothing is saved, regenerated or activated.
Agent prompt	Read your business instructions and the agent's behaviour override.
Knowledge base	List the documents your agent has been given (titles, types, status), not their contents.
Outbound campaigns	List past and scheduled batch-call campaigns and their counts. No recipient lists or scripts.

Everything else about your Ask Benny business is out of reach through Connect, including billing, team management, phone system settings, integrations and any editing of the agent, knowledge base, call plan or campaigns. Those remain dashboard-only in this release.

What happens when the assistant books or cancels

The two booking tools are the only actions with effects outside your Ask Benny records, so your assistant will ask you to confirm before using them.

• Booking takes the exact time you were offered and the client's name plus a phone number or email. The appointment appears in your dashboard immediately, is synced to any calendar you have connected, and is delivered to any booking webhooks you have configured. Booking through Connect does not itself send a confirmation message to the client.
• Cancelling requires the appointment's current version, so an appointment that changed since the assistant last looked is refused rather than cancelled by mistake. The cancellation frees the time, is synced to connected calendars and can offer the slot to your waitlist. It sends no webhook and no message to the client.

Retries are safe. If a request times out, the assistant repeats it with the same request key and gets the original result back; a booking is never created twice and a cancellation is never applied twice.

What Connect screens out, and the limits of that

Connect runs the same content screen over everything it returns and everything it accepts, before any data leaves Ask Benny. The screen looks for recognizable patterns, and when it finds one it withholds the whole field rather than part of it:

• Payment card numbers (validated by checksum), government identifier numbers and their labels (for example social insurance or social security numbers, passport, licence and health card numbers), passwords, keys and access tokens stated as such, and common medical terms. A call summary, transcript, note, text message or intake answer that matches is returned as withheld, never partially; names and other identifying fields go through the same check.
• Text the assistant asks to save (a note, a booking note, a client name, an intake answer, a cancellation reason) is screened the same way and refused if it matches. Nothing refused is stored or echoed back.
• A service whose required intake question asks for information of those kinds cannot be booked through Connect at all.

Some things are never returned regardless of screening: recording audio, attachment files, outbound campaign recipient lists and scripts, provider credentials, and the signed download links Ask Benny uses internally.

The screen is deterministic and pattern-based, not a guarantee. A sentence that describes a health condition in everyday words, or a private link a customer pasted into a text, can pass it and be returned to the assistant. That is why businesses whose calls or texts routinely contain health information should not turn Connect on. Whatever Connect returns to Claude or ChatGPT becomes part of your conversation there, subject to that provider's own terms.

Limits

• Lists return at most 50 items per page; longer text is cut with a visible marker; transcripts are limited to 300 turns.
• Each business is limited to 120 requests per minute across all of its connections.
• Availability searches cover at most 7 days per request; appointment lists at most 62 days.
• A retry with the same request key is honoured for 7 days.

Disconnecting

• To stop one app from using its connection, an administrator opens Settings → AI assistants in the dashboard and selects Revoke next to the connection. The app's very next request is refused, for everyone who connected through it. To reconnect, create a new connection.
• Removing the connector inside the app stops that app from calling Ask Benny, but Ask Benny receives no notice of the removal. Revoke the connection too if you no longer need it.
• To disconnect every connection for your business at once, an administrator selects Disconnect all in the same settings page. A disconnected business stays disconnected until an administrator allows reconnection, even if a previous sign-in is still valid.
• Leaving the business, turning off Connect AI apps in Settings → Features, or a lapsed subscription all end access on the next request. Turning it off refuses requests but keeps connections, so turning it back on restores them; revoke connections to remove them.

Data retained by Connect

Connect keeps only what it needs to run and to make retries safe. It does not keep copies of the calls, messages, contacts or appointments it returns.

• Manual connections: the connection's name, app, callback URLs, who created or revoked it and when. Never the client secret, which is shown once and not kept. Revoked records normally expire 90 days after revocation, but a revocation whose sign-in details are still being removed is kept until that finishes. The dashboard shows the latest 20 revoked connections.
• Connection records: which user connected which business through which app, with the permissions approved. A record stays while the connection exists. When a connection is revoked — by an administrator disconnecting assistants for the business, or because the user left the business — the record is kept as a revocation marker for 90 days so an old sign-in cannot quietly reconnect, then deleted. Disabling Connect for the business or a lapsed subscription refuses every request but does not revoke the connection records; they stay as they were until revoked.
• Request counters per business, kept for one to two hours.
• Write records: for each note added, appointment booked or appointment cancelled, the request key, a fingerprint of the request, its state, and the compact result the assistant received (for example the note identifier, or the appointment identifier, time and revision). A retry with the same key is answered from this record for 7 days; completed records are deleted 28 days after completion. A write whose outcome could never be established is kept until it is resolved, so it is never repeated by mistake.

Support

Questions, access requests and disconnection requests: info@askbenny.ca.