Home
/
Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Learn how to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable AI agents to securely access and interact with your Intercom data whenever helpful.

What is Model Context Protocol?

MCP is a protocol that enables AI tools and applications to connect with Intercom's data and services in a secure, standardized way. It provides a structured method for AI models to:

  • Find and retrieve Intercom data (conversations, contacts, etc.)
  • Access specific tools and functionality provided by Intercom
  • Maintain context about your Intercom workspace when working with AI assistants

How MCP Works

Intercom hosts a remote MCP server at mcp.intercom.com/sse that follows the authenticated remote MCP specification (docs). This server handles requests from AI tools and provides access to Intercom data through a secure, event-based interface using Server-Sent Events (SSE).

When an AI tool or application needs to access Intercom data:

  1. The tool connects to Intercom's MCP server
  2. Authentication verifies the user's permissions
  3. The tool can then access relevant Intercom data and functionality
  4. The connection remains live to receive updates as needed

Benefits of Using MCP

  • Secure Access: All data access is authenticated and authorized
  • Standardized Interface: Consistent interaction pattern across different AI tools
  • Contextual Understanding: AI assistants maintain awareness of your Intercom environment
  • Increased Development Efficiency: Retrieve and interpret customer data from Intercom via your internal AI tools to be more efficient in your work

Setting things up

MCP connection issues

It's early days for MCP. If you experience connection issues, we've found restarting the client or disabling and re-enabling the MCP server to help.

As a last resort consider clearing your local auth files rm -rf ~/.mcp-auth

Here's how you can configure popular AI tools to work with Intercom's MCP server:

Claude.ai

  1. Go to your settings at https://claude.ai/settings/profile.
  2. Under the Integrations section click on Add more.
  3. Use https://mcp.intercom.com/sse as the server URL.
  4. Select the Intercom workspace you would like to access, review permissions and accept if everything looks right.

Cursor

  1. Open Cursor Settings (CMD/CTRL + Shift + J)
  2. Go to the MCP section
  3. Click on Add new global MCP server
  4. Add the following configuration to mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Intercom": {
      "type": "Command",
      "command": "npx -y mcp-remote https://mcp.intercom.com/sse"
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

  1. Open Windsurf settings (CMD/CTRL + ,)
  2. Go to the Cascade section
  3. Press the Add Server button then Add custom server
  4. Add the following configuration to mcp_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Intercom": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.intercom.com/sse"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code

  1. Hit CMD/CTRL + Shift + P and search for > MCP: Add Server...
  2. Select stdio
  3. Enter npx mcp-remote https://mcp.intercom.com/sse as the command
  4. Enter Intercom as the Server ID.
  5. Hit CMD/CTRL + Shift + P and search for > MCP: List Servers
  6. Start Intercom's MCP server
< {label}
{label} >