Use with AI assistants (MCP)

The Ruuster API is also available as an MCP server (Model Context Protocol, the open standard AI assistants use to connect to tools). Connect it once, sign in with your Ruuster credentials, and your assistant can answer questions like "which of my leads looked at 31 Chaparral Valley Way this week", "seller report for MLS A2351541, last 4 weeks", "make me a market map of where my leads are looking" or "who are my hottest leads right now".

Before you start

You need three things:

1. API access turned on for your brokerage. If you haven't used the Ruuster API before, have an owner or admin email support@ruuster.com with your brokerage name. See Overview.
2. Your Ruuster login email and API key, as an owner or admin. Sign in to the Ruuster web app and copy the key from the Zapier integration settings. Each person uses their own key. Agent logins can't connect.
3. The server URL: https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp

Most important step: use one Claude account everywhere. When you connect, a Ruuster sign-in page opens in your web browser. That browser must be signed in to Claude with the same Claude account as the Claude app or tab you're chatting in. If the browser is signed in to a different Claude account, the sign-in succeeds but is saved to that other account. Claude then keeps showing "Authorization required" with another Connect button, no matter how many times you sign in. Before step 1, open claude.ai in your default browser and check the account shown at the bottom left.

Claude on a Team or Enterprise plan

An owner adds Ruuster once for the whole organization (part A). Then each person connects with their own Ruuster key (part B). The owner who added it does part B too.

A. Add Ruuster to the organization (an owner, once)

1. In Claude, go to Organization settings › Connectors.
2. Choose Add, then Custom, then Web. Web means a server reached over the internet, which is what Ruuster is. Desktop is only for a connector that runs on your own computer.
3. Enter the name Ruuster and the URL https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp, then continue.
4. Under Authentication, choose Sign in now. Claude may have pre-selected No sign-in with a "Detected" label; change it to Sign in now.
5. Under OAuth client, choose Use Claude's published identity.
6. Leave Request headers empty and Advanced unchanged.
7. Choose Add. You won't be asked to sign in here; that happens in part B.
8. So Claude can put your logo and listing photos into the decks and documents it builds, go to Organization settings › Capabilities, choose Allow network egress to package managers and specific domains, and add api.ruuster.com. See Logos and photos in decks and documents.

The connector settings can't be edited later. To change them, remove the connector and add it again, and everyone then connects again.

B. Connect your own account (every person, including the owner)

1. Go to Customize › Connectors (your own settings, not Organization settings).
2. Find Ruuster, marked Custom, and choose Connect.
3. A Ruuster page opens in your browser. Enter your Ruuster login email and API key, then choose Approve.
4. The page says you're connected and sends you back to Claude. Ruuster now shows as Connected. This is once per person, not once per chat.

Claude on a Free, Pro or Max plan

1. Go to Customize › Connectors and choose Add custom connector.
2. Enter the name Ruuster and the URL https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp.
3. If the dialog shows Authentication, choose Sign in now and Use Claude's published identity, as in part A above.
4. Choose Add, then Connect on the new Ruuster entry.
5. Sign in on the Ruuster page with your login email and API key, and choose Approve.

The Free plan allows one custom connector.

Use it in a chat (Claude)

1. Start a new chat.
2. Choose + in the message box, then Connectors, and make sure Ruuster is switched on. Claude remembers this for new chats.
3. Ask: "Which brokerage am I connected as?" Claude should answer with your brokerage name and data dates. If it does, you're set up. Claude also checks whether it can put your logo and listing photos into decks and documents, and tells you if a setting is still needed.
4. Then ask anything, for example "What can Ruuster do?" for a tour of what it can pull.

The Claude desktop app and claude.ai share the same connection, so connecting in one connects both.

Logos and photos in decks and documents

When Claude builds a deck, document or file for you, it downloads your logo, agent photos and listing photos in its own sandbox, which can reach only the websites your Claude plan allows. Every image Ruuster gives Claude comes from one address, api.ruuster.com, so that's the only one to allow:

• Team or Enterprise: an owner opens Organization settings › Capabilities, chooses Allow network egress to package managers and specific domains, and adds api.ruuster.com. Then start a new chat.
• Free, Pro or Max: the setting is a single switch, without a list of your own websites. Attach the image to the chat instead.

Until then, Claude tells you when it can't download an image, and the data and your brand colors still come through.

Claude Code

1. In a terminal, run:

   claude mcp add --scope user --transport http ruuster https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp
   

2. Start Claude Code, type /mcp, choose ruuster, then Authenticate.

3. Sign in on the Ruuster page that opens, and choose Approve.

Claude Code keeps its own sign-in, separate from claude.ai. If your Claude account already has Ruuster connected, Claude Code may also list that connection on its own.

ChatGPT

1. Go to Settings › Connectors. On plans that gate custom connectors, turn on Developer mode there first.
2. Add a custom connector with the URL https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp and OAuth sign-in.
3. Sign in on the Ruuster page that opens, then enable the connector in a chat.

Other assistants

Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Gemini CLI and any other client that supports remote MCP servers with OAuth: add a remote (HTTP) server with the URL https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp and sign in when it opens the Ruuster page. Meta's Muse signs in the same way; see Muse. Assistants that connect with an API key instead use https://mcp.ruuster.com/key and your key on its own; see Assistants that take one API key. Assistants that can't finish that sign-in, such as Grok Bot, can send your key in headers instead; see Grok Bot and other assistants that take headers. Integrations that don't use an assistant, such as server-to-server jobs, should call the REST API with your key directly.

Muse

Muse connects with the Ruuster sign-in, like Claude and ChatGPT, and stays connected until you remove the connector or Ruuster revokes it. You add a connector by asking for it in a chat; there's no setting for it.

1. In a Muse chat, type: Add a custom connector called Ruuster at https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp and sign in. If you tried before, start with Delete every Ruuster connector I have in a new chat.
2. Muse gives you a link to the Ruuster sign-in page. Open it and enter your Ruuster login email and your API key from Account Settings in the Ruuster web app (owner or admin login). The key is 60 characters long and starts with $2b$10$; copy all of it.
3. On the same page you can add your CRM's API key (Follow Up Boss, Sierra Interactive or Sure Send) so Muse can read your CRM too, and tick the box if you want it to make changes.
4. Back in Muse, ask something like Summarize my Ruuster account to try it.

Muse has an API key option as well. It isn't needed, and Muse's key box has failed to save the key for some people, so use the sign-in.

Assistants that take one API key

Some assistants connect with a single API key, which they send in the Authorization header, and have no sign-in. Use the key-only address, https://mcp.ruuster.com/key: it offers no sign-in, so the assistant asks for your key straight away.

1. Sign in to the Ruuster web app as an owner or admin and copy your API key from Account Settings. It's 60 characters long and starts with $2b$10$. That whole string is your key, even though it looks scrambled. Copy all of it.

2. Add Ruuster as a custom server at https://mcp.ruuster.com/key with API-key authentication.

3. In the API key field, type your Ruuster login email, a colon, then paste your key right after it, with no spaces. For example, if your login is jane@yourbrokerage.com:

   jane@yourbrokerage.com:$2b$10$Xy7...
   

   The email in front works whichever key you have, your own or your brokerage's integration key (the one Ruuster set up for your brokerage's app connections, which needs your email to know who you are). Your own key also works on its own, without the email.

Under the hood, both Authorization: Bearer <key> (or Bearer <email>:<key>) and HTTP Basic (Authorization: Basic <base64 of email:key>, or of the key alone) are accepted. A wrong value gets a message that says what to fix. The CRM tools need the CRM headers from the next section, so an assistant that can't set extra headers connects without your CRM.

Grok Bot and other assistants that take headers

Some assistants open the Ruuster page but never finish connecting, or ask for an API key instead of a sign-in. Grok Bot is one. For these, add Ruuster as a custom remote server with the URL https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp and these headers:

Don't use the assistant's sign-in or Authorize button for this server; the headers are the sign-in. In Grok Bot, ask it to "add a custom server called Ruuster at https://mcp.ruuster.com/mcp" and give it the headers, or add them under Settings › Plugins › Yours. If an earlier attempt left a Ruuster server behind, remove it first.

The key is checked on every connection, with the same rules as the sign-in page. A wrong header gets a message that says which one. To disconnect, remove the server or its headers; rotating your API key also ends the connection.

If something goes wrong

Still stuck? Email support@ruuster.com with the time you tried and the assistant you used.

What you get

What the assistant sees

• One tool per read call, named after the path (properties_engagement, leads_lookup, leads_map, cma_create…), with the same parameters as the API, plus composed tools: seller_report, lead_story, hot_leads, find_listing (by address, MLS number or id) and listing_prospects (reverse prospecting: your leads whose saved searches fit a listing, in one call), and area_prospects (your leads looking in a city, zip, county or neighborhood at a price, from CRM and Ruuster activity and saved searches). The brand tool returns your logo, name, phone, colors and fonts, so documents it writes can carry your brand. mortgage_rates returns today's national rate averages and a trend. leads_map returns where your leads are looking, ready to plot.
• Ready-made asks: What can Ruuster do? (a tour of what it can pull, for the brokerage you're connected as), hottest leads, a lead's story, how a listing is doing, a CMA, a weekly summary, mortgage rates and a seller report. Claude Code lists them as slash commands. In claude.ai, ask in your own words.
• These docs as reference material, so it knows the conventions (days are America/Chicago, from is included and to excluded, one listing per call).
• Lists default to 50 rows. The assistant follows nextCursor only when you ask for more.

Where your key goes. Only mcp.ruuster.com (or api.ruuster.com) ever asks for it. Ruuster keeps it encrypted, tied to that one connection, and uses it to make the same API calls you could make yourself: same brokerage, same lead-contact setting, same limits (/me shows them). Every call shows in your usage like any other API call. To disconnect, remove the connector in your assistant; rotating or blocking your API key also ends every connection.

Limits apply as usual. 120 calls a minute, 20 lookup calls a minute, 200 CMAs a day for your brokerage. If the assistant hits one, it is told how long to wait. A long exploratory conversation can use the lookup allowance quickly; the composed tools are the economical way to answer the common questions.

Not a place for other people's data. The assistant only sees what your key can see. Lead names, emails and phone numbers that appear in answers carry the same obligations as your CRM data.