Claude.ai & Claude Desktop

Claude.ai and Claude Desktop can both connect to Zandovi as a remote MCP connector: Claude signs in with OAuth, and once connected it can list your projects and templates, render images and design new templates through the conversation, using the 18 tools in the MCP reference: get_account, list_projects, list_templates, get_template, generate_image, submit_batch, get_batch, the authoring tools validate_design, preview_design, create_template, edit_template, delete_template, create_project, the image tools list_images, upload_image and search_stock_images, and the knowledge tools search_icons and get_design_reference. Ask for “a 20% off coupon for my garden centre” and Claude validates the design, shows you a preview, saves it into a project and hands you a link to open it in the designer.

Available on every Claude plan that supports custom connectors (Free, Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise). On Team and Enterprise, a workspace owner adds the connector for the workspace.

Add the connector

1. In Claude.ai, open Settings → Connectors (Claude Desktop: Settings → Connectors in the app menu).

2. Click Add custom connector.

3. Enter this URL:

   https://mcp.zandovi.com/mcp

4. Click Connect. Claude opens a browser window and sends you to Zandovi to sign in and authorize the connection.

If you are prompted for an OAuth client ID or secret under Advanced settings, leave them blank. Zandovi’s authorization server registers a client for Claude.ai automatically the first time you connect; you never need to create one by hand.

What the consent screen shows

After you sign in, Zandovi shows a consent page at app.zandovi.com/connect:

• Who’s asking: the connecting app’s name and origin, so you can confirm it is really Claude.
• Organization: a picker for which of your Zandovi organizations to connect. The connection is bound to this one organization; templates and projects in your other organizations stay invisible to Claude until you connect it again for them.
• What it can do: a checklist of the scopes Claude requested, all ticked to start with (an app that names no scopes is offered all of them: design:read, templates:read, render, templates:write, images:read and images:write). Untick any you don’t want Claude to have, for example templates:write to stop it creating, updating and deleting templates and projects. account:read is implicit on every connection and is not shown in the list. A scope your role in that organization cannot grant is shown greyed out with the reason, and cannot be enabled by unchecking or rechecking anything. A connection approved before the authoring tools shipped keeps the scopes it had: reconnect to pick up the newer scopes.

Click Allow access to finish, or Deny to cancel. Denying returns you to Claude without a connection.

Using it

Once connected, ask Claude things like “what projects do I have in Zandovi”, “render the welcome-coupon template with name Alex” or “design an Instagram post announcing our summer sale and save it to the Marketing project”. Claude calls the tools listed in the MCP tools reference and only offers the ones your connection’s scopes allow. Templates Claude creates are private to you and land in the project you name; open them from the link Claude gives you to refine them in the designer.

Design reference tools

Claude gets Zandovi’s design knowledge from one tool, get_design_reference({topic}), which returns a whole knowledge-pack section: guide (design gotchas plus every element field’s default value), variables (binding variables, values and batch rules), codes (every validation code, split out to keep guide short), fonts, presets, examples, example:<name> for a full example design, elements for an index of all 15 element types, or element:<type> for one type’s field table, coordinate origin, unsupported fields and a valid example. Icon names come from search_icons. Both run locally against the bundled pack, so they need no extra API call and no credentials beyond the connection you already made. The same pack is also published as zandovi:// MCP resources, but the Claude.ai and Claude Desktop connector doesn’t give Claude access to them, so Claude uses the tools.

Renders count against your API quota

Every image Claude renders through this connector (generate_image, submit_batch, and the previews preview_design, create_template and edit_template make while designing) charges your organization’s API render quota, the same pool an API key uses. validate_design is free, so Claude iterates there first. This applies even on paid plans with unlimited renders in the Zandovi designer: the designer’s unlimited-render allowance and the API quota are two separate pools, and connector traffic always draws from the API one.

Disconnecting

Zandovi and Claude each keep their own record of the connection, so remove it from whichever side you want to stop using:

• In Zandovi: go to Settings → Connected apps, click Revoke next to Claude and confirm. This immediately invalidates every access and refresh token the connection holds, so Claude cannot make another call even if it still shows as connected on its side.
• In Claude: open Settings → Connectors, find Zandovi, and remove it. This stops Claude from offering the tools, but Zandovi still lists the grant under Connected apps until you revoke it there too.

To switch which organization is connected, revoke the existing connection (either side) and connect again; you pick the organization fresh each time you connect.