Setup guide

Connect Zinta to the AI you already use

Zinta is not an app you log into every day. It plugs into the AI you already talk to, so finding customers becomes something you ask for in the same conversation where you do everything else. This page shows you how, for every app that supports it.

It takes about two minutes and you do not need to be technical. If you use Claude or ChatGPT, you will not even need a key.

The Zinta address, which every app below asks for

https://getzinta.com/api/mcp

What this actually does

Once Zinta is connected, your AI gains four new abilities. It can read what you sell and who you are trying to reach, see every company you have already been shown so it never repeats one, go and search the web for new ones, and save what it finds back to your dashboard.

The important part is whose AI does the work. Zinta supplies the brief and the memory. The thinking runs on the Claude or ChatGPT subscription you are already paying for, which is why this costs $19 a month instead of $79.

Things to ask once it is connected

  • Find me five companies that just raised a seed round and would need what I sell.
  • What am I currently targeting, and what have I rejected so far?
  • Who is already in my pipeline? Do not show me any of them again.
  • I just shipped this feature. Find ten companies who would pay for it.

What you will need

  1. 1

    A Zinta plan. Any paid plan includes this. See plans.

  2. 2

    At least one project. A project is the product you are finding customers for. Add one in your dashboard under Projects. Without it, every tool will refuse politely and tell you so.

  3. 3

    One of the apps below. Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, VS Code, Gemini CLI, or anything else that speaks MCP.

The easy way

Apps that need no key

Claude and ChatGPT can connect to Zinta on their own. You paste the address, sign in with your Zinta email and password, and approve a screen that tells you exactly what the app will be allowed to do. There is no key to copy, store or lose.

Claude

claude.ai in a browser, or the Claude desktop app
  1. 1

    Open Claude and click your name in the bottom left, then Settings.

  2. 2

    Choose Connectors in the left-hand list.

  3. 3

    Click Add custom connector at the bottom of the page.

  4. 4

    Paste the Zinta address into the URL box and click Add.

  5. 5

    Claude sends you to a Zinta sign-in page. Sign in with the email and password you used to buy your plan.

  6. 6

    You will see a screen listing what Claude will be allowed to do. Read it, then click Connect. Claude takes you back and the connector is on.

The address to paste

https://getzinta.com/api/mcp

Zinta now appears in the tools menu of any new chat. Start a new conversation for it to show up.

ChatGPT

chatgpt.com in a browser, on a paid plan
  1. 1

    Open Settings, then Apps, then Advanced settings, and switch on Developer mode. This is what lets ChatGPT talk to servers other than its own.

  2. 2

    Go back to Apps and click Add custom connector.

  3. 3

    Paste the Zinta address and continue.

  4. 4

    Sign in with your Zinta email and password when ChatGPT sends you to us, then approve the screen that lists what it will be allowed to do.

  5. 5

    Open a new chat, click the + button, and switch Zinta on for that conversation.

The address to paste

https://getzinta.com/api/mcp

Developer mode is on the web app, and OpenAI offers it on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans. If you cannot find the setting, that is usually why.

Worth knowing. ChatGPT asks you to enable Zinta per conversation, using the + menu. If your first question comes back with "I do not have access to that", this is almost always the reason.

Developer tools

Apps that use a key

Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and the rest read their settings from a file, so they need a key instead of a sign-in. Get yours first, then find your app below.

Getting your key

  1. 1. Sign in to your Zinta dashboard and open Connect.
  2. 2. Click Create my key.
  3. 3. Copy it straight away. We store only a scrambled copy, so it cannot be shown to you again.

Treat it like a password. Anyone holding it can read your pipeline. If it ever leaks, issue a new one: that stops the old one immediately.

Wherever you see YOUR_KEY below, replace it with the key you copied, including the zk_ at the front.

Claude Code

A terminal, in your project folder

One command. Run it from whichever folder you work in.

claude mcp add --transport http zinta https://getzinta.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Check it worked. Run `claude mcp list`. Zinta should be there.

Cursor

Settings, or a file in your project

Open Settings and find MCP, or create a file called .cursor/mcp.json in your project and paste this in. The file version travels with the project, so anyone who opens the repo gets it.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zinta": {
      "url": "https://getzinta.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Check it worked. Cursor lists its MCP servers in Settings with a green dot when one is connected.

Codex CLI

~/.codex/config.toml

Codex reads the key from your environment rather than the file, so the file itself is safe to commit.

[mcp_servers.zinta]
url = "https://getzinta.com/api/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "ZINTA_API_KEY"

Then in your shell profile

export ZINTA_API_KEY=zk_your_key_here

Check it worked. Open a new terminal so the export takes effect, then start Codex.

VS Code

.vscode/mcp.json in your workspace

Per workspace, so a repository can carry its own.

{
  "servers": {
    "zinta": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://getzinta.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Check it worked. VS Code shows MCP servers in the Copilot chat tools picker.

Gemini CLI

A terminal

One command, the same shape as Claude Code.

gemini mcp add --transport http zinta https://getzinta.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Check it worked. Run `gemini mcp list`.

Anything else

Any MCP client at all

Zinta is a standard MCP server, so any client that can call a web address works. It needs two things: the address, and a header reading Authorization: Bearer followed by your key. Some older clients can only talk to programs on your own machine rather than to a web address. For those, mcp-remote sits in between and translates.

npx -y mcp-remote https://getzinta.com/api/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Check it worked. If the client lists four tools beginning with zinta_, it is connected.

What each tool does, in plain words

zinta_projects

Asks which of your projects it should hunt for. Most accounts have one.

zinta_targeting

Reads your brief: what you sell, who buys it, what counts as a good moment to reach out, and every reason you have rejected a company before.

zinta_pipeline

Reads the companies you have already been shown, so the same one never comes back twice.

zinta_file_prospects

Saves what it found. Anything without a real source, a dated reason and a published email address is refused and handed back with the reason.

You never call these yourself. You ask in plain language and the AI decides which to use, which is the whole point of connecting it rather than learning another dashboard.

How the connection works

Zinta is a standard MCP server reachable over the web, so nothing is installed on your machine and nothing runs in the background. Your app opens a connection when you ask it something, and closes it again.

The no-key apps use OAuth 2.1, the same sign-in flow you have used to connect other services. Your Zinta password is never given to them: they receive a token that only works for your account, lasts thirty days, and can be cut off by disconnecting.

The key apps send your key in a header on every request. Both routes land in the same place and can do exactly the same four things.

Zinta never sends email. It writes the opening message and stops, so nothing reaches a stranger without you reading it and sending it from your own mailbox.

If something goes wrong

Every tool fails with a generic error

Start a fresh conversation. Most clients read the server once when a chat begins, so a connector added mid-conversation is not in that chat. If a new chat also fails, disconnect and re-add the connector.

"This account has no projects yet"

Your account is real but has nothing to hunt for. Open your dashboard, go to Projects, and add one. The hunt needs to know which product it is finding customers for.

"That authorisation has expired. Reconnect."

A connector sign-in lasts thirty days. Disconnect Zinta in your app’s settings and add it again. You will not lose anything: your pipeline lives in your account, not in the connection.

"That API key is not valid"

Keys start with zk_ and are shown once, when you create them. If you have lost yours, issue a new one on the Connect screen. Issuing a new key immediately stops the old one, so update every tool that used it.

The app cannot find the server at all

Check the address has no space at the start or end, which is the usual result of copying by hand. Use the copy button above instead. The address must begin with https.

It connected, but no tools appear

In ChatGPT, tools are switched on per conversation from the + menu. In other clients, a restart is usually enough. If four tools beginning with zinta_ still do not appear, write to us.

It says it found nothing

That is a real answer, not a failure. Zinta refuses to file a company it cannot show you a source for. If it happens every time, your targeting is probably too narrow: widen the geography or lower the minimum fit score in your dashboard.

Words you may not need but will see

MCP
A shared language that lets an AI app use tools that someone else runs. Zinta speaks it, so you do not have to install anything.
Connector
What Claude and ChatGPT call an outside tool you have added. Same thing as an MCP server.
Endpoint
The web address an app talks to. Ours is the one at the top of this page.
Key
A long password for programs rather than people. Ours begin with zk_. Anyone holding it can read your pipeline, so treat it like a password.
OAuth
The "sign in with" flow you have used on other sites. It is how the no-key apps connect, and why they never need your password.

Still stuck

Write to us and say which app you are using and what you saw. A real person reads it, and a setup problem is our bug before it is yours.