Civly Command Center puts Civly’s research tools inside the chat you are already having. You sign in with your Civly account the first time you connect, and there is nothing else to set up. Steps for Claude and for ChatGPT are below.
What it does
Civly Command Center gives campaign and advocacy teams direct access to Civly’s research platform. You ask in the chat, the work runs on Civly, and the answer comes back in the same conversation.
Ask questions of Civly’s research data
Federal and state campaign finance, donor records, lobbying, legislative activity and congressional trading — roughly 300 datasets, queried in plain language and answered in seconds. Search the catalog first to find out what exists, then ask the question.
Commission an opposition research book
On a candidate, donor or organization. You choose the political angle, confirm the social accounts the research found before anything is spent, and get back a finished Word document.
Run an AI Narrative probe
See what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Grok currently tell voters about a candidate, with every answer graded as helping, neutral or hurting, and an action plan for changing it.
Research public social media
A person’s public accounts across twelve platforms at once — X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Substack, Bluesky, Facebook, Truth Social, Rumble, Twitch and LinkedIn — with one result shape for all of them.
Most of the tools only read: they search the catalog, answer a question of the data, report how a job is doing, or hand back a report that is already finished. A few start work that costs money, and those behave differently — see how spending works.
What you need
- A Civly account, with the entitlements for what you want to run. The connector reaches the same platform through the same account your team already uses in the Civly app. If you are not sure what your account covers, ask us.
- In Claude, the Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans all work. Free allows one connector at a time.
- In ChatGPT, a paid plan. Adding Civly by URL also needs developer mode; adding it from the apps directory does not. On a Business or Enterprise workspace an administrator may have to allow it first.
Connect it in Claude
If you see Civly Command Center in Claude’s connector directory, add it from there, sign in with your Civly account, and you are finished. Nothing below applies.
Don’t see it in the directory yet? Add it by URL
https://app.civly.ai/mcp
Add it by URL
- Open your Connectors settings.
- Click +, then Add custom connector.
- Paste
https://app.civly.ai/mcpas the remote MCP server URL and click Add. Leave the advanced settings alone — Civly registers itself, so there is no client ID or secret for you to find. - Sign in with your Civly account and approve access on the consent screen.
- In a conversation, click +, choose Connectors, and switch on Civly Command Center.
On a Team or Enterprise organization, an owner adds it once for everyone, from Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom → Web, using the same URL. Each member then connects their own Civly account from their own Connectors settings.
Connect it in ChatGPT
If you see Civly Command Center in ChatGPT’s apps directory, add it from there and sign in with your Civly account. That route needs no developer mode. Nothing below applies.
Don’t see it in the directory yet? Add it by URL
Add it by URL
- In Settings, turn on developer mode. It sits with the advanced security settings, and ChatGPT flags it as elevated risk because it lets a conversation call tools on servers outside OpenAI. This is only needed to add a connector by URL.
- Go to Connectors and create a new one. Name it Civly Command Center.
- Enter
https://app.civly.ai/mcpas the server URL — including the/mcpon the end — and choose OAuth for authentication. - Sign in with your Civly account when prompted. ChatGPT reads the tool list from the server once you are through.
- Start a new conversation and add Civly Command Center from the tools menu.
Both assistants move these menus around from time to time. If a label here does not match what you see, look for the setting that adds your own connector or MCP server. The address to give it is always the same.
How spending works
Reading costs nothing. Searching the data catalog, asking a question of the data, checking how a job is doing and downloading a report you have already paid for are all free to run, as often as you want.
A few tools start work that does cost money — a research book, an AI Narrative probe, a social media research run. Those follow three rules, and the rules are why the connector will sometimes say no:
- It names the paying client. Every paid run is billed to a named client. Ask for one without saying who it is for and the tool refuses before anything starts, and tells you which client names your account can use.
- It asks before it starts. These tools are declared to Claude and ChatGPT as irreversible, so your assistant shows you a confirmation before calling them. Nothing is spent on a run you did not approve.
- It stops at the limit. If a client’s allowance for the month is used up, the run is refused, nothing is charged, and asking again returns the same answer instead of queuing.
Long jobs behave the same way in a chat as they do in the app. The tool hands back an id and a time estimate, the work carries on at Civly, and you ask for the status when you want it. You can close the conversation and come back to it.
What it will not do
- It cannot change your data. Questions of the data run as read-only queries against Civly’s own research holdings, and call no outside service. Nothing the connector can do inserts, updates or deletes a record. The research tools do reach outside Civly where the work requires it: the AI Narrative probe queries public chatbots, and social media research reads public accounts.
- It will not guess who you meant. Before a research book or a social run spends anything, the accounts it found are put in front of you to confirm. Two people with similar names, or a better-known figure from the same state, should never end up in each other’s research file — so that confirmation is a stop, not a formality.
- It will not start paid work on its own. No named client, no run.
What to ask
Openers that reach each part of the connector:
- “What Ohio campaign finance data do you have?”
- “How many donors in Cuyahoga County gave more than $1,000 since 2024?”
- “Start an AI narrative probe on Jane Smith, US Senate, Ohio, Democrat, for the Smith campaign.”
- “How is book 42 doing?”
- “Research Jane Smith’s social media on X and YouTube for the Smith campaign, handles @janesmith and @janesmithvideo.”
The first, second and fourth cost nothing to run. The third and fifth name a client, because they start paid work.
Support
Questions about the connector, or about getting access: [email protected], or send us a note and we will get back to you.
Civly’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use govern everything the connector does.
The product the connector reaches into is described on the Command Center & Clips page.