Chord MCP
Try Chord MCP in Claude Desktop
Chord MCP turns Claude into a data analyst for your store. Once it's connected, you can ask questions like "how many returning customers viewed a cart before purchasing?" in plain English, and Claude pulls the answer straight from your Chord warehouse, writing and running the SQL for you behind the scenes.
This guide walks you through connecting Chord MCP to Claude Desktop in about five minutes. No coding required for the recommended path; a more technical setup is covered at the end for engineers who want it.
What you'll need
- A Claude account (Free, Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise) with Claude Desktop installed
- A Chord account with access to your organization's data
- About 5 minutes
For best results, use Claude Opus (or the most capable model available on your plan).
Answering a data question involves multiple steps behind the scenes: searching your schema, checking saved queries and org conventions, drafting SQL, and validating it before running. More capable models complete these steps faster and more reliably, especially for complex questions like cohort analysis, churn breakdowns, or year-over-year comparisons. Smaller models handle simple lookups well but may time out on multi-step queries. To change your model, use the model picker near the message box and select Opus before starting your conversation.
What is Chord MCP?
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect securely to outside tools and data. Chord MCP is our hosted MCP server: it gives Claude a safe, read-only window into your Chord data warehouse.
When you ask a data question, Claude uses Chord MCP to:
- Look up the right tables and saved queries in your warehouse
- Apply your organization's conventions (how you define revenue, which test orders to exclude, and so on)
- Write the SQL, run it, and explain the answer back to you
You stay in control the whole time. The connection is read-only. Claude can look at your data and answer questions, but it can't change or delete anything.
Set up Chord MCP (recommended path)
The easiest way to connect is through Claude's built-in Custom Connectors. This works entirely in the Claude interface — no terminal, no config files.
A note for Team and Enterprise plans: Only an organization Owner can add a custom connector for the whole org. If you're on a Team or Enterprise plan and don't see the option to add one, ask your Claude workspace Owner to add Chord MCP first (using the steps below), then skip to step 3.
1. Open your Connectors settings
In Claude, go to Settings → Connectors.
- On Pro or Max plans, this is under Customize → Connectors. Click the "+" button, then "Add custom connector."
- On Team or Enterprise plans, an Owner adds it under Organization settings → Connectors → "Add" → hover "Custom" → select "Web."
2. Add the Chord MCP server URL
When prompted for the remote MCP server URL, enter:
Leave the optional Advanced settings (OAuth Client ID / Secret) blank - you don't need them. Click "Add."
3. Connect and sign in
Find Chord in your list of connectors and click "Connect." A browser window opens for you to sign in to Chord and approve access. This is a standard OAuth sign-in; Claude never sees your password, and you can revoke access anytime from your connector settings.
Once you've approved, you're connected. ✅
4. Turn it on in a conversation
Start a new chat. Click the "+" (or "Search and tools") button near the message box, choose Connectors, and make sure Chord is toggled on for the conversation.
Ask your first question
Type a question in plain English. Claude will recognize it as a data question and use Chord MCP automatically. Try one of these:
- "How many orders did we have last month?"
- "What was our gross revenue in Q1, broken down by month?"
- "Show me our top 10 products by revenue this year."
- "How many new customers did we acquire last quarter versus the quarter before?"
- "What's our average order value over the last 90 days?"
Behind the scenes, Claude finds the right tables, applies your warehouse conventions, writes the SQL, runs it, and explains the result, usually citing which tables and definitions it used so you can trust the number.
Tip: The more specific you are, the better. "Gross revenue" and "net revenue" can mean different things — say which one you want, and Claude will use the matching definition.
What Claude can do with Chord MCP
Once connected, Claude has a toolkit for working with your warehouse. You don't need to call these directly since Claude picks the right ones but here's what's happening under the hood:
Capability | What it does |
|---|---|
Run query | Executes the read-only SQL and returns the rows. |
Search schema | Discovers which tables exist in your warehouse and what they contain. |
Saved views | Checks whether a trusted, pre-built query already answers your question. |
Past queries | Finds similar questions you've asked before as examples. |
Instructions | Applies your org's standing rules (revenue definitions, test-order exclusions, segmentation logic). |
Documentation | Answers "how do I…" questions about Chord itself. |
Preview table | Peeks at a few rows of a table for a quick sanity check. |
Tenants | Lets you see and switch between Chord organizations you belong to. |
Working across multiple organizations? If you have access to more than one Chord org, just ask Claude something like "switch to the [org name] organization" and it will route your questions to that warehouse for the rest of the conversation.
Troubleshooting
Which Claude model should I use?
For the best experience, we strongly recommend Claude Opus (or the most capable model available on your plan) when working with Chord MCP.
Answering a data question isn't a single step. Behind the scenes, Claude searches your schema, checks saved queries and your org's conventions, drafts the SQL, validates it, and sometimes revises it before running. Complex questions like cohort analysis, churn breakdowns, and year-over-year comparisons can take many of these steps, and more capable models complete them in fewer, faster passes.
Smaller models like Sonnet handle simple lookups well ("how many orders did we have last month?"), but on multi-step analytical questions they may take longer or time out before reaching an answer.
To change your model in Claude, use the model picker near the message box and select Opus before starting your conversation.
My question times out or never finishes
Complex analytical questions involve several rounds of schema lookup, SQL drafting, and validation. If you're seeing timeouts, switch to Claude Opus using the model picker near the message box. It resolves ambiguous questions in fewer steps. Breaking a big question into smaller ones ("first show me cancellations by week, then break down the top week by reason") also helps on any model.
Claude isn't using Chord / says it can't reach the data.
Make sure the Chord connector is toggled on for your current conversation (the "+" or "Search and tools" menu). Connectors are enabled per chat.
The connector won't connect.
Chord MCP connects from Claude's cloud, not from your laptop, so https://mcp.chord.co/mcp needs to be reachable over the public internet. This works out of the box for the hosted Chord endpoint. If your team runs Chord behind a corporate firewall or VPN, your network admin may need to allowlist Anthropic's IP ranges.
I signed in but still get permission errors.
Your Chord account needs access to the organization's data. Confirm with your Chord admin that your account has the right permissions, then disconnect and reconnect the connector.
I need to change the connection.
To edit a custom connector, remove it (Connectors settings → the three-dot menu → Remove) and add it again with the updated details.
Advanced: connect via config file (for engineers)
If you'd rather wire Chord MCP up through Claude Desktop's local configuration instead of the Custom Connectors UI, you can. This uses the mcp-remote shim to bridge Claude Desktop to the hosted server.
Requirements: Node.js (for npx) and, for the script below, jq. macOS and Linux only.
Option A — one-line installer. Run:
This merges a Chord MCP entry into your claude_desktop_config.json. Then fully quit Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q on macOS) and reopen it. The first connection opens a browser for OAuth sign-in.
Option B — edit the config by hand. Open your Claude Desktop config file:
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
- Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Add Chord under mcpServers:
Save the file, fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop, and complete the browser sign-in on first connect.
Heads up: The local config-file method (claude_desktop_config.json) is a separate mechanism from Custom Connectors and is specific to Claude Desktop. For most people, the recommended Custom Connector path is simpler and also works in Claude on the web and Cowork.
Questions?
Reach out to your Chord contact or email [email protected] and we'll help you get connected.