MCP connector for Claude & ChatGPT
Your AI stops making up sources
Connect cytado to Claude with a single address, and every claim in your text gets a real academic publication, a printed page number and a quote — or an honest “not found”. Zero code, two minutes.
100 citations a month free, no card.
Sound familiar?
You ask Claude for a paragraph with references. You get elegant text, four footnotes, everything looks professional. You check the first entry on Google Scholar — it does not exist. The second — the author is real, but never wrote that paper. It is not the model’s fault: it simply has no access to academic libraries, so it fills the gaps with the most plausible-sounding content.
And the stakes are real: supervisors spot-check footnotes, reviewers check them systematically, and integrity committees increasingly start with the bibliography. One fabricated reference undermines the credibility of the whole work.
This is what a fabricated reference looks like:
“…as confirmed by Miller and Hayes (2019)¹.”
1. J. Miller, R. Hayes, Teacher burnout in modern schools, “Journal of Educational Psychology” 2019, no. 3, pp. 45–62.
The format is flawless, the journal exists, the names sound credible. But no one ever wrote this paper — and that is exactly what makes it dangerous.
What the connector changes
With cytado connected, your assistant stops citing “from memory”. Before inserting a footnote, it checks the claim against a corpus of real publications — read page by page, with printed page numbers preserved. Only what has actual backing makes it into your text.
Real publications
Every source exists: title, authors, year and a link to the original. Click and verify.
Printed page numbers
Not “somewhere in the PDF” — the page a supervisor checking the footnote will land on.
An honest “not found”
When nothing supports a claim, the AI gets a clear signal — instead of force-fitting the nearest match.
Who this actually helps
Writing a bachelor’s or master’s thesis
Every chapter needs literature, and you do not have weeks to dig through databases. With the connector you draft a paragraph in Claude and get sources with page numbers right away — ready for the footnote, with a link to verify before you submit.
A PhD or a journal article
Here a fabricated reference is not a slip — it is disqualifying. The connector grounds claims in publications with DOIs and printed pagination, and answers an unsupported thesis honestly: no source. You know what is documented before a reviewer does.
A term paper due tomorrow
An essay for tomorrow, “minimum 5 references” required. Instead of bolting literature on at the end, you ask the assistant for text grounded via cytado — the bibliography grows with the text, not after it.
Expert content and reports
A specialist blog, an industry report, training material — credibility separates content from noise. Claims backed by real research with page numbers defend themselves, including in front of the legal department.
How it works in a conversation — in plain words
There is no tool to learn. You talk to your assistant as you always do — it knows when to reach for cytado on its own. Here is a real exchange:
- 1
You write in your own words
“Write a paragraph on teacher burnout and ground the claims in sources via cytado.” A plain sentence, no commands.
- 2
The assistant checks the shelves
Before writing anything, it asks cytado whether the corpus has enough material on the topic. That check is free.
- 3
It states claims and asks for evidence
It breaks the paragraph into concrete claims and requests a source for each. cytado answers: publication, authors, year, page, quote — or “not found”.
- 4
It hands back text with footnotes
You get a paragraph where every grounded sentence carries a marker, with the bibliography underneath. Every entry is clickable and verifiable.
A real exchange from Aug 8, 2026 — these four publications exist, and the page numbers come from their printed pagination.
Under the hood? Three things worth knowing
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard AI assistants use to plug in external tools — like a USB port: one socket, many vendors. cytado exposes four tools through it, and the assistant decides when to use them.
The cytado corpus is publications read page by page, printed pagination preserved. When a topic is missing, the connector can harvest sources from academic databases in the background (a few minutes) and only then cite.
You pay only for resolved citations — “not found” is free, and every agent call shows up in your panel tagged MCP, with clickable bill line items.
Connect it, step by step
Pick where you write. Each path shows exactly the screens you will see.
1Open Settings → Connectors in claude.ai
Click your initials in the bottom-left corner, choose Settings, then the Connectors tab. At the bottom, click “Add custom connector”.
2Paste the cytado address and click Add
In the server URL field type exactly: https://cytado.com/api/mcp — nothing else. Leave the OAuth fields empty; everything configures itself.
https://cytado.com/api/mcp3Sign in and click “Allow”
Claude takes you to cytado.com. No account yet? You can create one in half a minute, no card. After signing in you will see a consent screen: click Allow and you are back in Claude with the connector attached.
4Enable cytado in a chat and write
In the chat window click “+”, choose Connectors and enable cytado. From now on, just ask: “write a paragraph about X and ground the claims in sources via cytado”.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Connecting in claude.ai means pasting one address and two clicks — no API key, no terminal, no code. An API key is only needed for Claude Code and ChatGPT.
How do I know the sources are real?
Every result is an existing publication with a link to the original, a printed page number and a short quote from that page. When nothing supports a claim, you get an honest “not found” — the tool never invents sources.
How much does it cost?
The account is free, and the test key gives you 100 resolved citations a month with no card. You pay only for citations you actually received — a miss is always free. Pricing lives on the API page.
Does it work in languages other than English?
Yes — the corpus covers English, Polish and German publications. You write in your language and get sources with page numbers in that language.
How do I revoke access?
In the cytado panel (Account → API) deactivate the “MCP (claude.ai)” key — the connector stops working immediately. You can also simply remove the connector in claude.ai settings.
Two minutes to an AI that cites for real
Create a free account, paste one address into claude.ai, and try it on your own writing.
Create an account and connectPrefer REST? See the citation API and the documentation.