Use your Chat.co experts in ChatGPT

1. Availability

Chat.co has been submitted to OpenAI for the ChatGPT directory and is in review. Until OpenAI publishes it, Chat.co does not appear when you browse ChatGPT's directory.

The developer-mode connection below works now. We tested it end to end: listing experts, a cited answer, a follow-up, a direct search and opening a source.

2. Before you start

• Your own Chat.co account. You sign in yourself during setup. Never use another person's login.
• A workspace with at least one expert you can chat with in Chat.co, on an active plan. If someone else manages the account, they give you access to experts; see Team, roles & seats.
• Message credits in that workspace for expert answers and standalone searches. Listing experts and opening sources are free.
• Optional: permission to search an expert's knowledge directly. You only need it for standalone search. Asking questions and opening an answer's citations do not require it.
• ChatGPT on the web with developer mode. OpenAI lists developer mode for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts on the web. Availability can also depend on your workspace's policy, so a workspace admin may need to allow it.

3. Add Chat.co in developer mode

1. 1

   Turn on developer mode

   In ChatGPT, open Settings → Security and login and switch on Developer mode. OpenAI marks developer mode as elevated risk. Only add servers you trust.

2. 2

   Create a connection

   Go to chatgpt.com/plugins and select the + button. Enter a name, such as Chat.co, and a short description, such as “Ask my Chat.co experts for cited answers.”

3. 3

   Enter the server URL

   Under Connection, choose the public endpoint and enter the URL, including /mcp:

   url

   Copy

   https://mcp.chat.co/mcp

4. 4

   Choose OAuth

   Set authentication to OAuth. If ChatGPT shows advanced OAuth settings, use the values below. Leave client ID and secret fields empty; Chat.co never needs an API key here.

   Setting	Value
   Client registration	Dynamic client registration
   Scope	chatco:read
   OpenID Connect (OIDC)	Off

5. 5

   Create and sign in

   Create the connection. ChatGPT opens the Chat.co sign-in page; approve it as described in Approve in Chat.co. Back in ChatGPT, review the discovered tools: list_authorized_experts, consult_expert, search and fetch.

6. 6

   Use it in a conversation

   Start a new conversation, open the + menu, choose Developer mode and select Chat.co.

4. Approve in Chat.co

Every host sends you to the same Chat.co approval page. Sign in if asked, then check each part before you approve:

Choose Approve connection to finish, or Cancel to stop. The only permission requested is chatco:read. It means the app cannot change your chatbots, knowledge, settings or account. It does not make the connection free of side effects: asking an expert saves the conversation in Chat.co and uses message credits, and a standalone search uses credits too, exactly as in the Chat.co app. Your questions, and the answers, excerpts and files you are permitted to receive, pass to the AI app and its provider.

5. Your first cited answer

Run these in a new ChatGPT conversation with Chat.co selected. HR Handbook is a made-up example; use the name of one of your own experts.

1. 1

   Discover your experts

   prompt

   Copy

   Which Chat.co experts can I ask?

   Expect: the experts in the workspace you approved, with short descriptions, and whether you can search each one's documents directly. Free.

2. 2

   Ask a question and request citations

   prompt

   Copy

   Ask the HR Handbook expert how many vacation days a new employee gets. Cite the sources.

   Expect: the expert's answer with citations that link to supporting documents. It is charged once, at the expert's normal Chat.co rate. Expert answers can take longer than an ordinary chat reply; while it waits, the app may check back on the same question several times, and you are still charged once. Answers do not include credit-cost notes; your usage appears in Chat.co.

3. 3

   Follow up in the same conversation

   prompt

   Copy

   Does that change after two years of service?

   Expect: an answer that builds on the previous one, because the app continues the same expert conversation. If the reply ignores the earlier context, ask the app to continue the same Chat.co conversation.

4. 4

   Open a source

   prompt

   Copy

   Open the source for the first citation.

   Expect: the cited passage in the conversation, or a link to a Chat.co supporting-document page. Private documents ask you to sign in with the account that received the answer. Opening sources is free, even when credits have run out.

5. 5

   Optional: search documents directly

   prompt

   Copy

   Search the HR Handbook expert's documents for "parental leave".

   Expect: a list of matching sources you can open. This works only for experts marked as directly searchable. Each completed search costs 0.5 message credit, even when nothing matches.

6. Message credits

A search that completes with no matches still counts. Failed operations, inaccessible experts and retries of the same operation are not charged again. Your existing allocation applies; there is no checkout inside the connector. When credits run out, new paid requests stop, but you can still list experts and open sources you already received.

7. Common errors

8. Disconnect

1. 1

   Revoke access in Chat.co

   Open Connected applications in Chat.co, find the app and workspace, and choose Disconnect. The app loses access to the connector from its next request.

2. 2

   Remove the server from the app

   In ChatGPT, open chatgpt.com/plugins, select the Chat.co connection and remove it.

Disconnecting stops future access. It cannot remove answers or excerpts the app already received; that app's own terms and privacy policy govern them. To reconnect, start again from the app.

9. For developers & agents

You don't need this section to use Chat.co from an AI app. It documents the protocol for developers and for agents that call the tools directly.

Server

Tools

* Required.

Recipe for agents

1. 1

   List experts first

   Call list_authorized_experts. Only use id values it returns. Offer search only for experts whose access.knowledgeSearch is true.

2. 2

   Consult with a fresh operation_id

   Generate a new identifier (a UUID works) for each new question. Keep the returned conversation_id.

   consult_expert argumentsjson

   Copy

   {
     "expert_id": "<id from list_authorized_experts>",
     "question": "How many vacation days does a new employee get? Cite the sources.",
     "operation_id": "7f3b2c1e-5a9d-4e6f-8b0a-2d4c6e8f1a3b"
   }

   result (abridged)json

   Copy

   {
     "conversation_id": "<keep for follow-ups>",
     "answer": "New employees receive … [1]",
     "citations": [
       {
         "id": "<source id>",
         "title": "Employee handbook",
         "url": "<source link>"
       }
     ]
   }

3. 3

   Follow up in the same conversation

   Pass the conversation_id back with a new operation_id.

   consult_expert argumentsjson

   Copy

   {
     "expert_id": "<same expert>",
     "conversation_id": "<conversation_id from the first answer>",
     "question": "Does that change after two years of service?",
     "operation_id": "c41e9d27-0b6a-4f38-9e15-7a2d8c3b6f90"
   }

4. 4

   Read evidence with fetch

   Pass the citation's id and its title. The title is shown in approval prompts; the id is the lookup key. The excerpt may not be the whole document.

   fetch argumentsjson

   Copy

   {
     "id": "<source id from the citation>",
     "title": "Employee handbook"
   }

5. 5

   Present the answer with its links

   Show every cited source as a link to its url. Offer entries under files as downloads, not as citations. Don't add credit rates, model names or internal configuration to the answer.

Synthetic example: the HR Handbook expert, its answer and the angle-bracket values are placeholders. Use the identifiers and source links the server actually returns.

10. References

• Chat.co experts in your AI apps — overview, status of every host, credits and privacy
• Connected applications — review or disconnect
• OpenAI: ChatGPT developer mode
• OpenAI: Connect and test your plugin
• OpenAI Help Center: Developer mode and MCP apps in ChatGPT
• Support: support@chat.co