Connecting Claude to Your Community

If you use an AI assistant like Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor, you can connect it to LocalGrowth. Once connected, you can simply ask it to do things for you — "Post an announcement to my Riverside community about Saturday's cleanup day" or "Create events for our next four weekly meetups" — and the assistant fills in the details from your conversation and does the work.

The connection uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard supported by most AI tools.

What Your Assistant Can Do

An assistant connected with your API key can:

• Find communities — search by location and fetch community details
• Create a community — you become the owner, exactly as in the app
• Read and create content — posts, discussions, events, places, items and job listings in your communities
• Draft announcements — drafts only; you review and send them from the web app
• Manage members — list members, send email invitations, change roles or remove members (only in communities where you have those rights)

Your assistant acts as you: it can only see and do what your own account can see and do. Subscription tier limits and community permissions apply exactly as they do in the app. Updating and deleting existing content is deliberately not available yet.

Step 1: Generate an API Key

1. Open Settings from your account menu, then API Keys (or go directly to /app/settings/api-keys).
2. Click Generate new key.
3. Give the key a name that tells you where you'll use it — for example "Claude Desktop" — and optionally choose an expiry.
4. Copy the key immediately. For your security it is shown only once; if you lose it, revoke it and generate a new one.

Step 2: Connect Your Client

The API Keys page shows ready-to-copy configuration for each client, pre-filled with the right server address. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the key from step 1.

Cursor and Claude Code connect directly over HTTP with an authorization header — paste the "direct HTTP" snippet into your MCP settings.

Claude Desktop doesn't support custom headers in its connector settings yet, so its snippet uses the small mcp-remote bridge (it runs via npx, no installation needed). Add it to your claude_desktop_config.json.

After restarting your client, you should see LocalGrowth's tools listed and can start asking your assistant to use them.

Keeping Your Account Safe

• Treat an API key like a password. Anyone who has it can act as you.
• Name each key after the tool that uses it, so you can revoke exactly the right one later.
• Check "last used" on the API Keys page — if a key you're not using shows recent activity, revoke it.
• Revoke immediately if a key leaks. Revocation takes effect on the next request.
• Most AI clients ask for your confirmation before each action. If you run an unattended assistant with your key, you are responsible for what it does — start with a key you can revoke easily.

Troubleshooting

• "Unauthorized" errors — the key was mistyped, revoked or has expired. Generate a fresh key and update your client config.
• A tool call is denied — your account doesn't have that permission in the target community (for example, only owners can invite members), or the community has reached a plan limit.
• "Rate limit exceeded" — there's a generous per-minute cap on requests to keep the platform healthy; wait a minute and try again.