clay

Clay MCP Server exposes a set of data-management capabilities tailored for the Clay ecosystem. It functions as an MCP endpoint that enables clients to search contacts, retrieve and manage interactions, groups, notes, and events, and to add or update records such as contacts and groups. Typical usage involves starting the server and connecting a client that conforms to the MCP protocol to perform queries like contact searches by title or location, retrieve past interactions, get contact statistics, and manage groups or notes. The server is designed to be consumed by clients from Clay or Smithery, but can also be integrated into other MCP-compliant tooling that supports the standard MCP request/response patterns. Tools available include: a contact search tool capable of filtering by job title, company, location or keywords; an interaction search tool for extracting past communications; a contact statistics tool for counts and percentages; CRUD-like capabilities for contacts, notes, groups, and events; and utilities to retrieve notes and events within specified date ranges. Clients can combine these capabilities to build rich workflows, such as finding all contacts at a given company, saving notes tied to specific people, organizing contacts into groups, and scheduling or reviewing upcoming meetings.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (LTS) and npm installed on the host
• A compatible MCP client or framework to connect to the Clay MCP server

Installation steps:

1. Clone or download the repository containing the Clay MCP server code.
2. Install dependencies: npm install
3. Configure environment variables as needed (example PORT is optional if using defaults): export PORT=3000
4. Start the server: npm start or node server.js
5. Verify the server is running by sending a test MCP request to http://localhost:3000/mcp or the configured port.
6. If you use Docker or a different deployment method, adapt the above steps to your environment and ensure port mappings are correct.

• The server exposes standard MCP endpoints for searching and managing contacts, interactions, groups, notes, and events. Review the Clay MCP API docs for exact request shapes and response schemas.
• Ensure your MCP client uses the same protocol version as the server to avoid compatibility issues.
• If you run into connection issues, verify that the PORT environment variable is correctly set and that there are no firewall rules blocking the API port.
• For production deployments, consider enabling TLS termination and securing API access with appropriate authentication mechanisms supported by your MCP client.
• Common issues: mismatched field names in requests, incorrect date formats for range queries, and missing required fields when creating or updating records.