Add Cheerful to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code

On claude.ai and in the desktop app, custom connectors are added from settings: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste the URL. Claude opens the Cheerful sign-in, and the tools appear in the conversation’s tool list once you approve it.

The gate that stops most first attempts: on a Claude Team or Enterprise workspace, only an organisation owner can add a custom connector. If the option is missing or greyed out, your role is why — not the URL, and not our server. Ask whoever owns the Claude workspace to add it once for the organisation, or add it on a personal Pro/Max account to try it.

Claude Code takes the same server from the command line rather than a settings screen:

claude mcp add --transport http cheerful https://mcp.cheerful.ai/mcp

Approval behaviour is worth knowing: fourteen of the twenty Cheerful tools are annotated read-only, so clients that ask before write actions will not interrupt you for those. creator_search (spends credits), save_creators_to_list (writes to your lists) and the four campaign write tools are not, so a client may ask before they run.

ChatGPT reads MCP servers through its connector settings, and the flow is the same: add the URL, sign in to Cheerful, and the tools become available to the model. A workspace on a Business or Enterprise plan may restrict who can add one, in the same shape as Claude’s owner gate.

We are not in the ChatGPT plugin directory yet, so Cheerful will not appear if you search for it there — adding the URL directly is the path today, and it works on paid plans without waiting for a listing.

To connect it in developer mode:

• In ChatGPT on the web, open Settings → Security and login and turn on Developer mode. It is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans, on the web only. On a Business workspace only admins and owners can enable it.
• Open chatgpt.com/plugins, choose +, and enter https://mcp.cheerful.ai/mcp. Choose OAuth as the authentication method, then create the connector.
• Sign in to Cheerful and approve access on the consent screen.
• Start a new chat to use it. The thirteen tools are available to the model.

These three take MCP servers from a configuration file rather than a settings screen, and each names the keys slightly differently. Cursor’s is the shape most examples on the internet use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cheerful": {
      "url": "https://mcp.cheerful.ai/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code and Windsurf want the same URL under their own key names — VS Code nests servers under a servers object with an explicit HTTP type, and Windsurf uses a serverUrl field. Rather than reprint two config schemas that change without telling us, take the URL above and follow the editor’s own MCP documentation for the wrapper. It is one field in every one of them.

One thing that is worth stating for all three: this is a remote server. No npx, no local process, no package to install, and nothing to keep in sync when you switch machines — which also means you sign in once per editor rather than once per project.

Ask the assistant *"Who am I in Cheerful?"*. That lands on account_read, costs nothing, and answers even for an account with no mailbox connected yet — which makes it a better check than a search, because a search takes 90–155 seconds and a timeout looks like a broken connection.

If it cannot answer, check whether the server itself is up before touching your client config:

curl -s https://mcp.cheerful.ai/mcp/healthz
# {"status":"ok","service":"cheerful-mcp"}

A 200 there with a client that still cannot see the tools is a sign-in or permissions problem rather than an outage, and removing and re-adding the connector re-runs the sign-in.