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How to integrate and use Short.io with your MCP-enabled service

S
Written by Short.io
Updated this week

You can integrate and use Short.io with an MCP-enabled service such as Claude Desktop, VS Code or another one of your choice which supports custom MCP server settings from a JSON file.

In the following instructions, we will use Claude Desktop for demonstration purposes.

To enable the Short.io MCP server

Open the Claude Desktop Developer->Settings menu and add the following configuration where sk_secret_key is your Short.io API key:

{
	"mcpServers": {
		"shortio": {
			"command": "npx",
			"args": [
				"mcp-remote",
				"https://ai-assistant.short.io/mcp",
				"--header",
				"Authorization: ${SHORTIO_API_KEY}"
			],
			"env": {
				"SHORTIO_API_KEY": "sk_secret_key"
			}
		}
	}
}

To use the Short.io MCP server

Creating a short link

  1. Open Claude Desktop and start a new chat with a prompt similar to the following:

    Create a short link using the domain mybrand.bg and with the following settings: set slug and title to be summer-sale-50 and long URL to be https://www.mybrand.bg/new-arrivals/summer-sale-50-percent-off

  2. Wait a few moments for Claude to complete the task and display the result which includes detailed information on the created link:

    • Short URL

    • Original URL

    • Title

    • Link ID

    • Created (date)

    The link has been successfully created:

Note: With the current implementation of the Short.io MCP it is not possible to edit or delete an existing short link. In case you need to make any changes, please remove manually the old link from the Short.io Dashboard and create a new one including the necessary data.

Simple use cases

Searching for specific links

You can look for links which match certain criteria, for example:

Can you find all the short links which contain the word "bags" in their title and their expiration date is before "2025-08-01T21:00:00.000Z"?

Getting analytics and top-performing metrics

With the help of Short.io's MCP, you can retrieve the top column statistics (countries, browsers, operating systems, UTM campaigns, etc.) for a given domain.

For example,

Could you provide me with the top column statistics for the domain "mydomain.bg"? Specifically, I am looking for information on the top 3 countries, cities, and browsers.

Other Analytics & Statistics

You can also prompt your MCP client to retrieve for you:

Link statistics - Detailed analytics for individual links including clicks, geographic data, devices, browsers, and referrers

Domain statistics - Comprehensive analytics for entire domains over specified time periods

Top column by interval - Time-series data showing how top values change over different intervals (hour, day, week, month)

Link-specific top columns - Top-performing metrics for individual links

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