# Developer tools

Connect Claude Code, Cursor or VS Code to BLU, where the key stays on a machine you control — and what to do when you build on a model API.

Coding tools that run on your own computer can sign in the same way as hosted assistants — through BLU's sign-in page — or, because the key never leaves your machine, read it from your own configuration.

Server URL: `https://mcp.blu.luxe/mcp`

**Claude Code**

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http blu https://mcp.blu.luxe/mcp
```

Then run `/mcp` in Claude Code and sign in to **blu**, or run `claude mcp login blu`. The sign-in happens on BLU's page in your browser, which hands the result back to Claude Code on your computer (an address such as `http://localhost/callback`).

To pass the key yourself instead of signing in:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http blu https://mcp.blu.luxe/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your key>"
```

Don't combine `--header` with `--scope project`: that writes the key into the project's `.mcp.json`, which is usually shared with everyone who has the project.

**Cursor**

Add BLU to `~/.cursor/mcp.json` (or to `.cursor/mcp.json` in a project):

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "blu": {
      "url": "https://mcp.blu.luxe/mcp"
    }
  }
}
```

Cursor signs in with OAuth: when it first connects, BLU's sign-in page opens in your browser. Cursor's Cloud Agents don't read this file — they use the servers a team adds in Cursor's dashboard under **Plugins & MCPs**, where BLU signs in the same way.

**VS Code**

In VS Code, open the Command Palette, run **MCP: Add Server**, choose **HTTP**, paste the server URL and enter **blu** as the server ID. For your own setup choose **Global**, then **Copilot Global** if asked. VS Code signs in with OAuth: BLU's sign-in page opens in your browser.

VS Code can also read the server from a file. The older `.vscode/mcp.json` format still works (VS Code now marks it as deprecated in favour of its portable configuration files), and it is the one that can ask you for the key instead of storing it. VS Code passes a server that asks for input, like this one, only to its own local agent sessions — not to Copilot's — so for those, sign in through BLU's page instead:

```json
{
  "inputs": [
    { "type": "promptString", "id": "blu-key", "description": "BLU API key", "password": true }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "blu": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.blu.luxe/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${input:blu-key}" }
    }
  }
}
```

Leave out `inputs` and `headers` to sign in through BLU's page instead.

> **Tip:** A key passed in a header may have an IP allowlist, as long as your computer calls from an allowed address. A key used through BLU's sign-in page may not.

## Protocol

BLU's server speaks the Model Context Protocol over Streamable HTTP with JSON responses (no event streams, no sessions), versions **2025-03-26**, **2025-06-18**, **2025-11-25** and the stateless **2026-07-28**. It offers tools only (no resources or prompts), and every tool is read-only.

## Check the connection

Ask the tool to run [`get_connection_info`](https://docs.blu.luxe/mcp/tools/#get_connection_info). It answers with the agency, the key (its name, the first part of it and when it expires), how many creators and employees it covers, which kinds of data it may and may not read, whether fans' names are included, the agency's report time zone and the limits — including how many rows the key has read today.

## Building on a model API

If you are writing your own program on top of a model API, such as Anthropic's or OpenAI's, call the [BLU REST API](https://docs.blu.luxe/quickstart/) from your own server and pass the results to the model. The key then stays in your server's secrets, and you decide exactly which numbers the model sees. Don't put a BLU key into a request that a model provider forwards to another server.

## Limits

The same limits apply as for any assistant: 300 cost units a minute for your agency (separate from the API's own budget — most daily reports cost 10 units, *Sales records* and the *Reassigned sales log* 5, the rest 1; [Tools](https://docs.blu.luxe/mcp/tools/) shows each one's cost), up to 100 rows per call (50 by default), and 100,000 rows per key per day. See [Tools](https://docs.blu.luxe/mcp/tools/) for every tool and its inputs.