Connecting an AI assistant (MCP)

Moonbase has an MCP server, so the AI assistant you already use can work in your Moonbase account for you. Ask it to find a customer and check their licenses, to compare this month's sales with last month's, or to draft next week's newsletter, and it looks the answer up or does the work in Moonbase, as you. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard many AI assistants use to connect to other services, so any assistant that lets you add MCP connectors can connect to Moonbase.

An assistant only ever does what your role on the account allows (see Team members and roles), and you choose how far it can go when you connect it.

What an assistant can do

• Customers and support: find a customer by email, by name or by part of either, and see what they own: their orders, licenses and the devices they're activated on, subscriptions and trials, and the emails Moonbase sent them. It can update a customer's name, email or phone, unblock an address that bounced, resend a receipt, retry a failed order or a pending license, give a customer a license, extend or end a trial, refund all or part of an order, cancel a subscription, and revoke a license or one device's activation.

• Your numbers: the same figures as your dashboard, split and compared the same ways: sales and revenue, subscriptions, MRR and churn, licensing, downloads, customers, emails, voucher redemptions and the product funnel. Its answers match what the dashboard shows.

• Marketing: write campaigns and automations, show you their emails, send a test to you or your team, see who a campaign would reach and how it did, and see what an automation earned. It can turn automations on and off, add customers to one or take them out, create coupons (a percentage or a fixed amount off) and add codes to them, look up vouchers, and make lists and segments.

Settings, payouts, your team, and setting up products and checkout are done in Moonbase itself. An assistant also never gets a link that signs a customer in: for a renewal, a new card or a download, it points the customer to your customer portal.

Things to ask

• "Find the customer behind jane@example.com and check which devices their license is activated on."

• "How did revenue in September compare with August, per product?"

• "How many people tried Acme Synth last month, and how many of them went on to buy it?"

• "Which operating systems and app versions are our customers running?"

• "Draft a newsletter to everyone who owns Acme Synth announcing version 2, and show me what it looks like."

Connecting an assistant

1. In your assistant's settings, add a connector with the address https://mcp.moonbase.sh. Depending on the assistant, it's called a custom connector, an integration or an MCP server. There's no API key or token to copy.

2. The assistant opens a Moonbase page that says "{assistant} wants to use Moonbase as you". Sign in if you aren't already.

3. If you're on more than one account, pick the one to connect. An account is greyed out when your role there gives the assistant none of what it asked for.

4. Check what it will be able to do: the areas your role opens, such as Customers, Licenses or Analytics, each with read or write.

5. Choose How far it can go (see below).

6. Click Connect to {account}. You're sent back to the assistant, and we email you that it was connected, with what it can do.

Most assistants show Not verified by Moonbase on that page. It means we haven't confirmed who makes the assistant, not that something is wrong, so check that the address it will send you back to belongs to the assistant you meant to connect. If the page says It will send you back to an app on this computer, only continue if you just started connecting it from an app on that computer.

How far it can go

When you connect, choose one of three:

• Read only: it can look things up, but change nothing.

• Read and edit (the default): it can also make changes, such as drafting campaigns and automations, updating customers, changing lists and giving licenses. It can't refund orders, send or schedule campaigns, turn on or resume automations or add customers to them, cancel subscriptions, revoke licenses or activations, end trials, delete anything, change an automation that is on, or change who is on a list that an automation that is on starts from.

• Everything your role allows: all of that too.

Even with Everything your role allows, the assistant is told to say what will happen, and to whom, and to ask you before it refunds an order, cancels a subscription, revokes a license or an activation, ends a trial, sends or schedules a campaign, or turns on an automation. Stopping something always works, whichever you chose: it can pause, unschedule or cancel a campaign, and pause or turn off an automation.

To change your choice later, connect the assistant again and pick the new one, then disconnect the old connection under Account settings > User.

It acts as you

• Within your role: it can do what your role on the account allows, and no more than you approved when connecting. Reading analytics needs a role that sees the dashboard (Admin, Finance or Marketing), and making lists and segments needs one that manages customers (Admin or Support). When an Admin changes your role, the assistant follows within a minute, and when you leave the team, it stops working.

• Recorded as you: what it changes is recorded as you, just as if you'd done it in Moonbase.

• Anyone can connect one: everyone on the team can connect their own assistant, whatever their role, so no Developer role is needed. Connecting the same assistant again, from another computer say, makes a second connection, and both keep working.

Campaigns and automations

Campaigns and automations an assistant writes stay drafts until the campaign is scheduled or sent, or the automation turned on, so you can look them over in Moonbase first. It can show you an email as your customers would get it, before or after saving it, and assistants that can show apps in the conversation draw the email right there. It can send a test to you or to someone else on your team, never to a customer.

The same rules apply as in Moonbase: only a live account with a verified sending domain sends, and your daily email limits still apply.

Seeing and disconnecting assistants

Under Account settings > User, Connected apps lists the assistants you connected, with what each can do (including whether it can refund, send, revoke and delete) and when it was last used. Disconnect stops one within seconds.

People with the Developer role also see everyone's assistants under Account settings > Integrations, and can disconnect any of them. An assistant one person connected is marked Personal, and one that several people connected is a single row, such as "AI assistant · 3 people". Its page lists the People using it, with what it can reach for each of them and when they last used it, and a Disconnect for each connection.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an API key?
No. API keys are for your own systems (see API keys, rate limits and webhooks). An assistant connects with your own sign-in, as you, and stops when you disconnect it or leave the team.

Will it email my customers or refund orders on its own?
Not unless you connected it with Everything your role allows, and even then it's told to ask you first. Otherwise, campaigns and automations it writes stay drafts for you to send or turn on.

An account is greyed out when I connect: "Your role on this account gives it none of what it asked for".
Your role on that account doesn't open any of what the assistant asked for. An Admin can give you a role that does.

The assistant says something "needs access to ..., which this connection does not have".
Your role doesn't allow it, or you connected the assistant with Read only. Connect it again and choose more, or ask an Admin for a role that allows it.

It can't refund, send a campaign, revoke a license or delete.
You connected it with Read and edit, the default. Connect it again from the assistant and choose Everything your role allows. If your role doesn't allow the action either, an Admin needs to change your role too.

The assistant asks me to sign in to Moonbase again.
It was disconnected, by you or by someone with the Developer role, you left the team, or the account was closed. Connect it again from the assistant.

Connecting fails with "The app asking to connect could not be identified".
Moonbase couldn't read the description the assistant publishes about itself. Try again in a minute, and if it keeps happening, the problem is on the assistant's side.

Are its numbers the same as the dashboard's?
Yes. It reads the dashboard's own figures, counted the same way, so they match.