Use Elido in Claude Desktop and Cursor

Elido ships a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server as a local program. It runs on your machine, talks to the Elido REST API with your API key, and speaks MCP to your client over stdio. There is no hosted MCP URL and no OAuth connector: you cannot paste a server URL into the Claude Connectors screen.

What MCP gives you

• Ask "How many clicks did spring-2026 get this week?" and the client calls the analytics tool and answers with the real number.
• Say "Shorten https://example.com/very-long-path with tag newsletter" and the client creates the link and shows you the short URL.

Step 1 — Build the server

From a checkout of the Elido repository:

pnpm install
pnpm --filter @elido/mcp-server build

This produces packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js. Note the absolute path.

Step 2 — Create an API key

1. Go to Dashboard → API Keys → New key.
2. Pick the scopes you need (links:read and analytics:read for read-only use, plus links:write to create links).
3. Copy the key. It is sent to the Elido API as Authorization: Bearer ….

Connect in Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "elido": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "ELIDO_API_KEY": "your_api_key",
        "ELIDO_WORKSPACE_ID": "42"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop fully. The Elido tools appear in the tool list.

Connect in Cursor

Put the same mcpServers block into .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for all projects) and restart Cursor.

Connect in Claude Code

claude mcp add elido --env ELIDO_API_KEY=your_api_key -- \
  node /absolute/path/to/packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js

Run claude mcp list to confirm it is connected.

Configuration

Variable	Required	Description
ELIDO_API_KEY	yes	Your Elido API key.
ELIDO_WORKSPACE_ID	no	Numeric workspace id. Set it when the key can see more than one workspace.
ELIDO_API_BASE	no	API host. Defaults to https://api.elido.app; override it for self-hosting.

Available tools

Tool	What it does
create_link	Shorten a URL with optional slug, domain, title and tags
list_links	List recent links in the workspace (paginated)
query_analytics	Click-count timeseries for the workspace or one link, timezone-aware
generate_qr	Generate a QR code (SVG or PNG) for an existing link
list_workspaces	List the workspaces the API key can access

Scope of access

The server only sees the workspace the API key belongs to (or the one set in ELIDO_WORKSPACE_ID). With several workspaces, add one server entry per workspace with distinct names.

Troubleshooting

The client shows the server as failed or disconnected — Check that the path in args is absolute and that dist/index.js exists (rerun the build). Run ELIDO_API_KEY=test node /absolute/path/to/packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js in a terminal to see startup errors.

"Unauthorized" when calling a tool — The API key is missing, mistyped or revoked. Create a new one under Dashboard → API Keys and update ELIDO_API_KEY.

Creating a link returns "forbidden" — The key lacks links:write. Create a key with that scope.

Claude Desktop does not show Elido after a config edit — Quit Claude Desktop completely and start it again; closing the window is not enough.