Overview

Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI client to trend so it can answer questions about your data.

trend supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the emerging standard for connecting AI clients like Claude and ChatGPT to your business tools. Once connected, your AI client can pull up dashboards, run verified questions, and answer ad-hoc questions using your semantic layer — without leaving the app you already use.

What it can do

  • Answer natural-language questions against your data (“how many signups did we have last month?”)
  • Run any of your verified questions on demand
  • Preview datasets and describe what columns are available
  • Search your dashboards, datasets, and internal docs

What it can’t do

MCP access is read-only. Your AI client cannot create, edit, or delete anything in trend — no new dashboards, no schema changes, no touching the semantic layer. Every query is capped at 200 rows and scoped to the workspace the API key belongs to.

Setup

Create an API key first: open AI → MCP in trend (owner-only). Click New MCP key, name it, and copy the value — you won’t see it again.

Then pick your AI client:

Claude

  1. Open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector in Claude (requires Pro, Team, or Enterprise).
  2. Name the connector “trend”.
  3. MCP Server URL: https://app.trend.dev/api/mcp
  4. For Authentication, pick “No sign-in”. trend uses an API key, not OAuth. (The OAuth Client options don’t apply.)
  5. Under Request headers, add a header named Authorization with the value Bearer YOUR_TREND_MCP_KEY — include the literal Bearer prefix.

ChatGPT

  1. Open Settings → Connectors → Create in ChatGPT (requires Pro, Business, or Enterprise).
  2. Name the connector “trend”.
  3. MCP Server URL: https://app.trend.dev/api/mcp
  4. For Authentication, pick “No sign-in”. trend uses an API key, not OAuth.
  5. Under Request headers, add a header named Authorization with the value Bearer YOUR_TREND_MCP_KEY — include the literal Bearer prefix.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop connects via a local config file. Open claude_desktop_config.json (Claude → Settings → Developer → Edit Config), paste this in, and replace the key placeholder:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "trend": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote@0.1.29",
        "https://app.trend.dev/api/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TREND_MCP_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The @0.1.29 pin locks the bridge to a specific published version — a small supply-chain hygiene measure so a compromised future release of mcp-remote can’t silently ship to your machine on next restart. Bump the version manually when you want to update.

Fully quit Claude Desktop (⌘Q) and reopen. The trend connector should appear.

Other clients

Any MCP client that supports Streamable HTTP will work. Point it at https://app.trend.dev/api/mcp with Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TREND_MCP_KEY.

Auto-run mode

By default, when your AI client wants to run a query against your data, it shows the query and asks you to confirm. That’s useful for technical users; friction for everyone else.

Owners can turn auto-run on in AI → MCP. Your AI client will just answer the question naturally. A safety net still asks for confirmation on obviously risky queries (unfiltered scans, cross joins, etc.), and verified questions run without confirmation either way.

Third-party AI providers

When you connect trend to an AI client, everything that AI reads through the connector — dashboards, dataset schemas, query results, verified questions — is sent to that AI provider’s servers. Your relationship with them for that data is separate from your relationship with us; the AI provider’s terms and data-handling policies apply:

If any workspace holds data you can’t send to a third-party AI (PII, PHI, financial data with regulatory constraints, etc.), don’t issue an MCP key for that workspace.

Rate limits

Two hourly caps per workspace:

  • 600 total requests per hour
  • 60 queries that hit your warehouse per hour

If you hit either cap, your AI client will see a “rate limited” message. Wait an hour or contact us if this becomes routine.

Revoking access

Any key can be revoked immediately from AI → MCP. The AI client stops working the next time it makes a request. Create a new key and reconfigure the client if you want it back.