AI AGENTS · MCP
By Nilay Baranwal, Co-founder, Social Line · September 25, 2026 · 5 min read
The usual way to get an AI assistant to analyze social mentions is to export a CSV and paste it into a chat. It works once, then goes stale. Connecting the assistant to the listening tool directly over the Model Context Protocol (MCP) means it reads the live data and can act on it, like marking a complaint as handled.
20
tools Social Line's MCP server exposes
2
ways to authenticate: OAuth or a scoped API key
2
access levels: read-only, or read-and-write
$15
lowest plan that includes MCP, per month billed annually
MCP is an open protocol, introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data. A service runs an MCP server that describes the tools it offers; an assistant like Claude calls those tools when a request needs them.
For social listening, that means the assistant can list your tracked keywords, pull recent mentions, and update their status, using the same data you see in the dashboard.
In Social Line, the MCP endpoint is shown on the dashboard's Settings page. Every plan includes it, from Starter up.
In Claude, go to Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector, and paste in the endpoint. Claude opens an OAuth approval screen; approve access and the connector is ready. You can revoke it from Social Line's Settings page at any time.
If your MCP client doesn't support OAuth, generate an API key in Settings and send it as a bearer token instead. Choose read-only if the assistant should only look, or read-and-write if it should also change things.
Once connected, plain requests work: "What are people saying about us on Reddit this week?", "Summarize the negative mentions from the last three days", or "Which competitor comes up most often in our mentions?". Claude calls tools like list_keywords and list_runs to answer.
With write access, it can act too: "Mark that pricing complaint as done", "Tag the Northwind comparisons as competitor feedback", or "Hide mentions of our brand that also mention the football club".
Start with a read-only key while you get a feel for how the assistant uses the data. Write tools are only exposed to read-and-write credentials, so a read-only connection can't delete a keyword or change a mention's status even if asked to.
Each connection is scoped to your account and can be revoked independently, so you can give a separate key to each assistant or automation and cut one off without affecting the others.
Nilay Baranwal, Co-founder, Social Line
LinkedInNilay Baranwal is a co-founder of Social Line (socialline.app), an AI social listening platform.
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First results land within about two minutes of setup, then each keyword runs on the schedule you pick, from every 5 minutes to daily.
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