MCP client
Claude Desktop and the web app — Attensira as a custom connector
Add the Attensira MCP server as a custom connector in Claude, leave every authentication field alone, and enable it per conversation.
Karl-Gustav Kallasmaa, Founder & CEOLast updated What you configure
The exact settings, as our documentation publishes them.
Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector
Name: Attensira
Server URL: https://mcp.attensira.com/mcp
Connecting it
In order, with the reason each step exists rather than only the instruction.
- 1
Add a custom connector
Go to Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Name it Attensira and enter the server URL. Leave every authentication field alone — do not add a header and do not paste a client ID or secret, because Attensira publishes standard OAuth discovery and there is nothing for you to fill in.
- 2
Sign in and choose the workspace
Saving sends you to Attensira to sign in. Pick the workspace this connector should reach and approve the access it asks for, then you land back in Claude with the connector enabled.
- 3
Enable it in a new conversation
Open a new chat and enable Attensira from the tools menu. Existing conversations do not pick up new connectors, which is the single most common reason a correctly configured connector appears to do nothing.
- 4
Confirm the binding
Ask Claude to call get_account. It answers with your organisation, project and plan without you supplying a workspace id, which is how you know the credential is bound to the workspace you intended.
What it lets you do
- Puts visibility data inside the assistant somebody is already writing in, so a number can be read and acted on without a tab switch.
- Lets a conversation move from noticing something to changing it — pulling the prompts a competitor wins and adding prompts to cover the gap in the same thread.
- Works with the same eighteen tools every other client sees, because the server exposes one toolset rather than a per-client subset.
What it cannot do
An integration page that lists only capabilities is an advertisement. This is the half you are evaluating.
- Availability of custom connectors depends on your Claude plan and, on Team and Enterprise, on whether an administrator has allowed them. That is a client-side restriction Attensira cannot lift.
- An existing conversation never picks up a newly added connector, so a connector that seems to have no tools is usually being tested in the wrong chat rather than misconfigured.
- A connection reaches one workspace and cannot be moved. If it is pointed at the wrong one, the fix is to revoke it and reconnect choosing the right workspace at the consent screen.
The desktop and web versions of Claude connect the same way and are worth treating as one integration: a custom connector pointed at the MCP server, authenticated in the browser, enabled per conversation.
Add nothing but the URL
This is the step people over-complicate. Open Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. Give it a name and the server URL. Then stop.
Every authentication field stays empty. No header, no client ID, no secret. Attensira publishes standard OAuth discovery, so the client works out what it needs on its own — and a header pasted in here is how a static key ends up in a place you did not intend to put one.
Saving sends you to sign in, where you choose the workspace and approve the access. You come back with the connector attached.
The new-conversation rule
More apparently-broken connectors are explained by this than by anything else: existing conversations do not pick up a connector added after they started. If you configure the connector in one window and then go back to the chat you were already in to test it, the tools are not there and nothing is wrong.
Open a new chat, enable Attensira from the tools menu, and try again.
What the client decides rather than us
Custom connectors are not universally available. Whether you can add one depends on your Claude plan, and on Team and Enterprise it also depends on whether an administrator has allowed them. That is entirely a client-side decision and no amount of configuration on the Attensira side changes it.
It is worth checking before spending time debugging, because "the option is not there" and "the option is there and does not work" have completely different causes.
What it is actually useful for
The value is not that a chat can display a number. It is that the same conversation can act. While you are editing a page, you can ask which prompts mention a competitor and not you, and then add prompts covering the gap without leaving the thread. While reviewing a release, you can pull the last thirty days, compare them against the previous window, and check whether the movement is statistically real before anybody writes it into a summary.
That last one is the underrated case. The product returns a flag saying whether a change cleared its significance test, and an assistant that can read it is an assistant that will not narrate noise at you.
If you must use a key
On a machine that cannot open a browser, a static key works on the same endpoint. Note one specific hazard on desktop: the configuration file does not expand shell variables, so the key is written literally into it. Protect it with filesystem permissions, keep it out of anything synced or committed, and prefer OAuth wherever a browser exists.
Taking access away
Connections you have approved are listed under Settings, then Connections, and revoking one there stops it refreshing. An access token the client already holds stays valid until it expires, which is at most an hour — so if a credential has genuinely leaked, revoke and then assume up to an hour of remaining access rather than none.
Two clients, one integration
Treating the desktop application and the web application as a single integration is not a simplification for the sake of brevity. They share the connector model, the consent screen, the per-conversation enablement and the same list of tools, and a connection approved from one is a connection in the same list as one approved from the other. The only genuine divergence is the fallback path when no browser is available, which applies to the desktop application and not to the web one, and which is the situation you should be trying to avoid rather than plan for.
Questions people ask
- Do I need to fill in a client ID or secret?
- No. Leave every authentication field alone. Attensira publishes standard OAuth discovery, so the client finds what it needs by itself.
- I added the connector and there are no tools in my chat. Why?
- Almost certainly because it is an existing conversation. New connectors are not picked up by conversations that already exist — open a new chat and enable it from the tools menu.
- Why can I not add a custom connector at all?
- Custom connector availability depends on your Claude plan, and on Team and Enterprise on whether an administrator has allowed them. That is decided on the Claude side.
- Should I use a key instead?
- Only on a machine that cannot open a browser. Claude Desktop does not expand shell variables in its config file, so a key there is written literally and has to be protected with filesystem permissions.
- How do I take access away later?
- Revoke the connection in Attensira under Settings then Connections. The client fails on its next refresh and prompts you to sign in again.
Sources
Every factual statement above, with the page it came from and the date that page was read.
Attensira's connect documentation states that existing conversations do not pick up new connectors and that a new chat is needed after enabling one.
docs.attensira.com · retrieved
“Existing conversations do not pick up new connectors.”
Attensira's connect documentation instructs Claude users to leave every authentication field alone when adding the custom connector, adding no header and no client ID or secret.
docs.attensira.com · retrieved
“Leave every authentication field alone — do not add a header, and do not paste a client ID or secret.”
Attensira's connect documentation states that availability of custom connectors depends on the Claude plan and, on Team and Enterprise, on whether an administrator has allowed them.
docs.attensira.com · retrieved
“Availability of custom connectors depends on your Claude plan and, on Team and Enterprise, on whether an administrator has allowed them.”
Attensira's connect documentation states that Claude Desktop does not expand shell variables in its configuration file, so a static key is written literally.
docs.attensira.com · retrieved
“Claude Desktop does not expand shell variables in claude_desktop_config.json, so the key is written literally”