Use Chat.co experts in Claude

1. Availability

Claude

Published

Published in the Claude connector directory

Chat.co is listed in Claude’s connector directory. Claude Code can also add the same server manually.

Server URL: https://mcp.chat.co/mcp
Permission: chatco:read
Status reviewed: 30 September 2026

The directory listing covers Claude on the web, Claude Desktop, the Claude mobile apps, Claude Code and the Claude API. We ran the full flow in Claude on the web: listing experts, a cited answer, a follow-up, a direct search and opening a source. The other surfaces use the same connector, but we have not tested each of them separately.

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.
A Claude account. Anthropic offers connectors on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. On Team and Enterprise, your organization's settings may require an Owner to add or allow a connector before members can use it.
For Claude Code: Claude Code installed and signed in.

3. Connect in Claude (web, Desktop, mobile)

1
Open the Chat.co listing
Go to claude.ai/directory/chatco. Or, in Claude, open Customize → Connectors, select + and browse for Chat.co.
2
Select Connect
Claude opens the Chat.co sign-in page.
3
Sign in and approve in Chat.co
Choose the workspace and approve the connection, as described in Approve in Chat.co. You return to Claude afterwards.
4
Turn Chat.co on in a conversation
In a chat, select + in the lower left (or type /), open Connectors and switch Chat.co on.

4. Connect in Claude Code

Claude Code adds remote servers from the command line, as documented by Anthropic. Chat.co uses the HTTP transport.

Add the server

bash

claude mcp add --transport http chatco https://mcp.chat.co/mcp

This adds it for the current project only. To use it in every project, add --scope user:

bash

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user chatco https://mcp.chat.co/mcp

2
Sign in
Start Claude Code, run /mcp, choose chatco and authenticate. Your browser opens the Chat.co approval page.
3
Check the tools
After approval, /mcp shows chatco as connected, with four tools: list_authorized_experts, consult_expert, search and fetch.

5. 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:

On the approval page	What it means
Signed in as	The Chat.co account the app will act for. If it is the wrong account, cancel, sign out of Chat.co and start again from the app.
Workspace and billing account	The one workspace this connection uses. Its experts, permissions and message credits apply. To use a different workspace later, disconnect and connect again.
This application will be able to	Ask your experts and receive answers, citations and supporting-document links. Search knowledge you are permitted to read and open the sources it returns. When you ask for one, an expert may also produce an assessment or other file, which the app receives as a download.
Cannot	Manage or delete your chatbots. The connector has no tools for editing knowledge, settings, team members or billing.
Connection details	The requesting app’s client ID and return address. Use them to confirm this is the app you started from.

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.

6. Your first cited answer

Run these in a Claude conversation with Chat.co switched on, or in a Claude Code session. HR Handbook is a made-up example; use the name of one of your own experts.

1
Discover your experts
prompt
```
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
Ask a question and request citations
prompt
```
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
Follow up in the same conversation
prompt
```
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
Open a source
prompt
```
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
Optional: search documents directly
prompt
```
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.

7. Message credits

Activity	Charge
Ask an expert (including follow-ups)	The expert’s normal Chat.co message rate
Completed standalone document search	0.5 message credit
Retrieval an expert performs inside its answer	No additional charge
List experts or open returned sources	Free

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.

8. Common errors

What you see	Cause and fix
Claude answers without using Chat.co	Switch Chat.co on for the conversation (+ → Connectors), or name it in the request: “Ask my Chat.co experts…”.
Chat.co is missing from Browse on a Team or Enterprise plan	Ask an organization Owner to add or allow the connector.
Claude Code lists chatco but its tools fail	Run /mcp, select chatco and authenticate again.
“This connection request expired or could not be verified.”	The sign-in link was stale or already used. Start the connection again from the app.
“No accessible workspace” on the approval page	This login has no workspace with expert access. Sign in with the right account, or ask the account owner for access.
An expert is missing from the list	You chose a different workspace, or your access or licence changed. Check the expert in Chat.co, then disconnect and reconnect with the right workspace.
“Expert unavailable.”	The expert is not available to this connection. Ask the app to list your experts again and pick one from that list.
“This expert has insufficient message credits…”	The allocation is used up. Listing experts and opening sources still work. Add credits through your usual Chat.co process.
“The selected account does not have an active subscription.”	The workspace’s Chat.co plan is not active. The account owner can check billing in Chat.co.
“The expert took too long. This operation was not charged.”	Try again, or split a very broad question into smaller ones.
Search returns nothing, or asks which expert should pay	Name one expert in the request. Direct search works only for experts marked as searchable.
“This document is unavailable or you no longer have access.”	Sign in to Chat.co with the account that received the answer. Removed access or a deleted source cannot be opened.

9. Disconnect

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
Remove the server from the app
In Claude, open Customize → Connectors, select Chat.co and disconnect it. In Claude Code, run:
bash
```
claude mcp remove chatco
```

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.

10. 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

Property	Value
endpoint	`https://mcp.chat.co/mcp`
transport	MCP Streamable HTTP, stateless. POST only; GET and DELETE return 405 because there is no session to resume.
auth	OAuth authorization code with PKCE and dynamic client registration. Discovery starts from `https://mcp.chat.co/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource`, which the server also advertises in its `401` response.
scope	`chatco:read`
authorization	Re-checked on every call: current workspace membership, expert access, licence and credits.

Tools

Tool	Arguments	Returns	Cost
list_authorized_experts	None	`experts[]` with `id`, `name`, `description`, `access.chat` and `access.knowledgeSearch`	Free
consult_expert	`expert_id`, `question` (≤16,000 chars), `operation_id`* (16–128 letters, digits, `-` or `_`), `conversation_id`	`conversation_id`, `answer`, `citations[]` (`id`, `title`, `url`), and `files[]` (same fields) only when a requested expert action produced an assessment or file	Expert’s normal rate, once
search	`query`* (≤8,000 chars), `operation_id`*, `expert_id`, `paying_expert_id`	`results[]` (`id`, `title`, `url`)	0.5 credit per completed search
fetch	`id`*, `title`	`id`, `title`, `text` (bounded excerpt), `url`, `metadata` (`expert`, page range when known)	Free

* Required.

Recipe for agents

1
List experts first
Call list_authorized_experts. Only use id values it returns. Offer search only for experts whose access.knowledgeSearch is true.

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

{
  "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

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

Follow up in the same conversation

Pass the conversation_id back with a new operation_id.

consult_expert argumentsjson

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

Retries and identifiers

A paid call waits about 25 seconds for its result. If the expert is still working, the tool returns a “still running” error. Repeat the identical call with the same operation_id until the result arrives, without starting a new question. Do the same when your own request times out or the connection drops before a reply. A completed operation returns its stored result and is never charged twice.

If the server says the operation failed or expired (including “The expert took too long”), it was not charged; to try again, send the request with a new operation_id. An operation_id reused with different arguments is rejected as a conflict.

search without expert_id covers at most three experts and needs paying_expert_id; the results are not exhaustive. Prefer a targeted search.

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.

11. References

Chat.co experts in your AI apps — overview, status of every host, credits and privacy
Connected applications — review or disconnect
Chat.co in the Claude directory
Anthropic: Use connectors to extend Claude’s capabilities
Anthropic: Connect Claude Code to tools via MCP
Anthropic: MCP connector (Claude API)
Support: support@chat.co

Use your Chat.co experts in Claude

Key takeaways

1. Availability

2. Before you start

3. Connect in Claude (web, Desktop, mobile)

Open the Chat.co listing

Select Connect

Sign in and approve in Chat.co

Turn Chat.co on in a conversation

4. Connect in Claude Code

Add the server

Sign in

Check the tools

5. Approve in Chat.co

6. Your first cited answer

Discover your experts

Ask a question and request citations

Follow up in the same conversation

Open a source

Optional: search documents directly

7. Message credits

8. Common errors

9. Disconnect

Revoke access in Chat.co

Remove the server from the app

10. For developers & agents

Server

Tools

Recipe for agents

List experts first

Consult with a fresh operation_id

Follow up in the same conversation

Read evidence with fetch

Present the answer with its links

11. References