Connect in five minutes.

Make a read-only token, paste it into your assistant, and ask for your brands. No credits spent, nothing to install.

4 min read MCP Updated Jul 2026

This is the fastest way in: make a read-only token, paste it into Cursor or Claude Desktop, and ask for your brands. About five minutes, and it spends no credits.

// READ-ONLY IS SAFE

A read-only token can look at your data but can't generate anything or spend credits. It's the right token to start with. You can raise its access later — see scopes and access levels.

1. Create a token

1

Open Settings → MCP

In ScoutRival, go to Settings and choose MCP. (This is a Starter-and-up feature — on the Free plan you'll see an upgrade prompt here instead.)

2

Create a connection token

Give it a label you'll recognise (for example, Cursor on my laptop), leave the access level on Read-only, and create it.

3

Copy it now

The token is shown once — we store only a scrambled copy and can't show it again. Copy it, along with the small config block on the same screen. If you lose it, revoke it and make a new one.

2. Paste it into your client

The token goes into your assistant's MCP settings. For a client that takes a token — Cursor, Claude Desktop or Claude Code — it looks like this:

mcpServers config{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scoutrival": {
      "url": "https://user.scoutrival.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer sr_mcp_YOUR_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}
  • Cursor: put this in .cursor/mcp.json (in a project, or in your home folder for all projects), then restart Cursor. See the Cursor guide.
  • Claude Desktop: add it to the Claude config file, or use the OAuth connector. See the Claude Desktop guide.
  • Claude.ai on the web or ChatGPT: these don't take a pasted token — they sign in instead. Use the Claude.ai or ChatGPT guide.

3. Ask your first question

Once the connection shows as active, ask your assistant something that uses it:

  • "List my ScoutRival brands."
  • "Give me today's brief for <your brand>."
  • "How visible am I in AI answers?"

If it answers with your real data, you're connected. If the assistant says it can't find the tools, or the list looks empty, see troubleshooting — the usual fix is toggling the connection off and on so the client re-reads the tool list.

What next

  • Want to generate content? Make a token with the Content or Full access level — read scopes and access levels first.
  • Want the full list of what it can do? The tool reference covers every tool, its access level and its cost.
  • On a different assistant? Each client has its own short guide in this section.
Still stuck?
Contact support

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The full tool reference