Use Clinical Terminal in Claude Cowork

Claude Cowork and the Claude apps can query the Clinical Terminal graph directly — vendors, products, people, market signals, and hospital relationships — through a custom connector. This is the click-through version of our MCP setup guide: no terminal, no config files, about three minutes.

Step by step

Guide verified end-to-end against the Claude apps · August 2026

Step 1 — Get an API key

Sign in at app.clinicalterminal.com and open Settings → MCP Access, then click Create key. The full ct_live_… key is shown once — copy it somewhere safe. MCP access is included with the Landscape subscription.

Step 2 — Open Claude's connector settings

In the Claude desktop app or on claude.ai, open Settings → Connectors (the same Connectors list powers Cowork, chat, and Claude Code).

Step 3 — Add the custom connector

Click Add and choose the custom connector option. Name it Clinical Terminal and paste the server URL:

https://clinical-terminal-mcp-687925922613.us-central1.run.app/mcp

Hit Continue. On the authentication screen that follows, two settings matter:

1. Under Authentication, choose None — Claude's own description of that option (“for servers that use an API key instead of OAuth”) is exactly our case. “Always required” comes preselected with a “Detected” badge because the server rejects anonymous probes — leave it selected and Claude will walk you into an OAuth sign-in the server doesn't offer.
2. Under Request headers, click Add header, pick api-key from the header dropdown, and paste your full key as the value — no prefix, exactly as it was shown at creation (Claude stores it securely and never shows it again). Then hit Add:

ct_live_<your_key>

Step 4 — Connect, then verify it in Cowork

After adding, Claude shows the connector's page with “You are not connected to Clinical Terminal yet” — click Connect. With authentication set to None there is no sign-in step; it should flip to connected immediately. Then start a Cowork session (or a chat), make sure the Clinical Terminal connector is enabled in the tools menu, and ask a real question: “Using Clinical Terminal, which vendors work in denials management?” You should see Claude call the connector and come back with named vendors.

Step 5 — Tool permissions (recommended)

Every tool defaults to Needs approval, which pauses a Cowork session to ask before each call. On the connector's page, set Other tools → Always allow — every research tool is read-only, so this is safe. The one exception worth keeping gated: Publish comparison creates a shareable public page, so leave it on Needs approval.

Troubleshooting

• 401 — The Authorization header never reached the server — re-check the Request headers field on the connector.
• 403 — Invalid or revoked key, or over the monthly quota (resets on the 1st).
• 404 “Unknown or expired session” — The server-side session was lost (instance recycled). Disconnect and reconnect the connector, or just retry — a compliant client re-initializes on its own.
• 400 “No session” — The client skipped initialization. Disconnect and reconnect the connector.
• 429 — Per-minute rate limit — wait a few seconds and retry.
• Claude shows an OAuth or sign-in prompt, or “Couldn't reach Clinical Terminal” — the usual cause: the connector's Authentication setting is still on the preselected “Always required (Detected)”, or the request header isn't set as api-key with your key as the value. Edit the connector and re-check both against Step 3 (the value must be re-entered — Claude never redisplays it). As a fallback, the Claude Code or generic setup uses the same key.

Server status: clinical-terminal-mcp-687925922613.us-central1.run.app/health answers unauthenticated with the running version. Questions: agent@clinicalterminal.com.