MCP Server

The Plushcap MCP server lets compatible AI clients query Plushcap data about company engineering blogs, YouTube metrics, Hacker News posts, and industry trends.

Try without an account

The anonymous preview exposes six tightly limited, read-only tools and does not open a signup or OAuth flow:

codex mcp add plushcap-demo --url https://mcp.plushcap.com/try/mcp

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user plushcap-demo https://mcp.plushcap.com/try/mcp

The preview includes company list and detail lookups, trend-topic discovery, an eight-week trend snapshot, up to three posts from the last 14 days, and the top five active companies from the last 14 days. Page sizes, date windows, ordering, and result counts are fixed. Full article text is never returned. The preview also uses caching and shared traffic limits.

For larger queries, broader time windows, and the complete tool catalog, use the authenticated server described below.

Server URL:

https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp

Authentication

Plushcap MCP supports two authentication methods:

OAuth, for MCP clients that support remote OAuth authorization.
Plushcap API keys, sent as a bearer token.

For API key access, create or copy your Plushcap API key from your account and send it as:

Authorization: Bearer your-api-key-here

ChatGPT Web

ChatGPT can connect to Plushcap as a custom MCP app from ChatGPT web. OpenAI's current setup flow uses developer mode and a remote HTTPS MCP server.

Open ChatGPT in your browser.
Go to Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced settings.
Enable Developer mode, if it is available for your account or workspace.
Go to Settings → Apps & Connectors and choose Create.
Use these connector details:

Name: Plushcap
Description: Query Plushcap data about developer companies, content, YouTube, Hacker News, and trends.
URL: https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp
Authentication: OAuth

After creating the app, ChatGPT should show the tools exposed by Plushcap. Open a new chat, select Plushcap from the tools menu, and complete the Plushcap OAuth authorization flow if prompted.

For Business, Enterprise, or Edu workspaces, your admin may need to enable developer mode, approve the app, or publish it before other workspace members can use it.

ChatGPT Desktop App

Use ChatGPT web to create and authorize the Plushcap MCP app first. OpenAI's current MCP app creation and developer mode docs are web-focused.

After Plushcap is connected in ChatGPT web, open the ChatGPT desktop app and check the tools or apps menu in a new chat. If Plushcap appears there, select it and start asking questions that use Plushcap data. If it does not appear, use ChatGPT web for Plushcap MCP access until custom MCP apps are available in your desktop app version.

Claude

For Claude Code, add Plushcap from the project where you want to use it:

claude mcp add --transport http plushcap https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp
claude mcp list

To make it available across all Claude Code projects on your machine, add --scope user:

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user plushcap https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp

In Claude Code, run /mcp to authenticate and confirm the server is connected. If your Claude client asks for a bearer token instead, use your Plushcap API key.

Codex

Add Plushcap with the Codex CLI:

codex mcp add plushcap --url https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp
codex mcp login plushcap
codex mcp list

If codex mcp login plushcap says OAuth is only supported for streamable HTTP servers, remove and re-add the server with --url. Without --url, Codex stores https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp as a stdio command instead of a remote HTTP MCP URL.

For API-key authentication, set an environment variable with your Plushcap API key and reference it from ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.plushcap]
url = "https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "PLUSHCAP_API_KEY"

Restart Codex after updating the configuration so the new server is loaded. In the Codex TUI, use /mcp to see active MCP servers.

Other MCP Clients

Use the same server URL with any client that supports streamable HTTP MCP:

https://mcp.plushcap.com/mcp

If the client supports OAuth, authorize through Plushcap. Otherwise, configure the client to send your Plushcap API key as an Authorization: Bearer token.

Client Documentation

Health Check

You can confirm the MCP service is online at:

https://mcp.plushcap.com/health

Plushcap, by Matt Makai. 2021-2026.