Connect your AI

Connect your AI lets the AI you already use (ChatGPT, Claude, or any assistant that speaks MCP, the open standard AI apps use to call outside tools) read your shop and answer in your own words: how were sales this week, what is running low, what was on receipt 1043. It can only read: nothing can sell, refund, take a payment, change a setting or delete anything through it. It comes with the Online Restaurant and Chain plans and the 14-day trial (not Retail, not the buy-once desktop program). The AI is yours: you pay its maker for your own plan, and CreekPOS charges nothing per question. It is not the same as Ask your shop, which works without any AI.

#Switching it on

1. Sign in as the owner and open Settings → AI access.
2. Tick Allow AI access to this shop and the sentence under it, then save.

While it is off, every key is refused.

#Making a key

Under New key, give the key a name you will recognise (My ChatGPT, Accountant's Claude), tick what this AI may read, and if you like choose one branch and a last day.

Customers and team are personal data, so they start unticked; without Customers, a receipt shows the customer as hidden. Every key can also read CreekPOS's own help, so the AI explains a screen or an error correctly.

The key (it starts aik_…) is shown once, right after you make it: copy it then. We keep only a fingerprint of it. Treat it like a password. Revoke stops it at once; you can also pause and resume it. A key is never widened: for a new purpose, make a new key.

#Claude desktop app

On Windows or a Mac. Settings → AI access shows a card for each way to connect, already filled in with your address and the key you just made. The steps here follow each AI maker's own documentation. Menus move: if a step has moved, the app's own help names the new place.

1. Install Node.js (the LTS version from nodejs.org) once on that computer.
2. In Claude, open Settings → Developer → Edit Config. This opens Claude's settings file.
3. Paste the block from the card. It starts npx -y mcp-remote with the address https://api.creekpos.com/mcp and the header Authorization: Bearer aik_…. If the file already lists other servers, add this one inside the same list.
4. Save and restart Claude, then ask: "Using my shop tools, how were sales today?"

#Claude on the web and phone

On claude.ai and the Claude phone apps, with a paid Claude plan (in a company workspace, its owner adds the connector).

1. Open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
2. Name it after your shop. In Remote MCP server URL, paste the address from the card: https://api.creekpos.com/mcp/aik_…, with your key at the end. Leave the OAuth fields empty, and add it.
3. In a chat, switch the connector on from the tools menu and ask.

That address is the key itself: never paste it anywhere public. Revoking the key stops the address too.

#ChatGPT

With a paid ChatGPT plan (in a company workspace, its admin may have to allow it).

1. Open Settings → Connectors → Advanced and switch on Developer mode.
2. Create a connector: give it a name, paste the card's address https://api.creekpos.com/mcp/aik_… in MCP Server URL, set Authentication to No authentication, tick that you trust it, and create it.
3. In a chat, pick the connector from the tools menu and ask.

#Any other MCP client

For Cursor, an agent framework or your developer:

• Server: https://api.creekpos.com/mcp
• Header: Authorization: Bearer aik_…

Clients that cannot send a header can use the address with the key at the end, as above. The card also has a command to test the connection from a terminal.

#What to ask

Your AI asks CreekPOS for the exact figures and answers from them:

• "How were sales today compared with last Tuesday?"
• "What were my best sellers this month, and my profit for September?"
• "What is running low, and what expires in the next two weeks?"
• "What was on receipt 1043?"
• "Who is clocked in, and how many bookings do we have today?" (with those ticks)

Lists stop at 50 rows: for a long list, ask a narrower question. The figures are CreekPOS's, but the wording is your AI's own: check the report before a decision that depends on a number.

#The activity log and limits

Settings → AI access → What the AI did lists the last 50 calls: when, which key, which tool, how many rows, and whether it was answered or refused. The questions themselves are not stored. Making, revoking, pausing and resuming a key also appear in Team → Activity.

Each key can make 60 calls a minute and 2,000 a day; past that, the AI is told to wait. A key that asks 20 times in an hour for something its ticks do not allow is paused: it shows Paused, and with owner alerts on you get an alert at once. Check what that AI was asked, then Resume or Revoke the key.

#Safety

• Read-only by design: there is no tool that writes.
• A key sees only its own shop, and only one branch if you chose one. It is not a sign-in: it opens nothing but this connection.
• Product names and notes reach the AI as data, never as instructions.
• If a key leaks, revoke it and make a new one.
• Deleting your account deletes the keys and the log.

When the AI says the key is not valid, it was revoked, mistyped or past its last day: make a new key. When it says AI access is switched off, check the switch and your plan. When the Claude desktop app shows no tools, install Node.js, paste the card's block again and restart Claude. More on the Connect your AI page.