Connect ChatGPT to your apps with MCP — no API key required

by The Spinrun team3 min readGuides

Most MCP setup guides begin by telling you to generate an API key and paste it into a configuration file. For ChatGPT you can skip that entirely, and you should.

ChatGPT is one of the clients that can complete a browser authorisation. Give it a URL and it does the rest.

The whole setup

Open ChatGPT's settings, add a remote MCP server, and paste:

Remote MCP server URL
https://spinrun.ai/mcp

That is it. There is no second field to fill in.

A browser window opens the first time ChatGPT reaches the gateway. You sign in, choose which workspace it may reach, and you are done.

What is actually happening

Worth understanding, because it explains why this is the better path rather than just the shorter one.

ChatGPT's first request arrives without a credential and gets a 401 back. That response carries a WWW-Authenticate header pointing at a metadata document describing where to authorise. ChatGPT follows it, runs the OAuth flow, and retries with a bearer token. Nothing about that required you to know a URL or copy a value.

The consent screen in the middle does one job: choosing which workspace this client may reach. That is a narrower and more useful question than "do you allow access", and it is the one you actually want to be asked.

Set the rules before you connect anything interesting

ChatGPT with tools is an agent that can act in your accounts. Before you point it at anything you would mind losing, open each connected app and set its policy.

Three rows per app — read, write, destructive — each either allowed or blocked. There is no middle setting, and there is no prompt asking you to approve a call while it is in flight: the gateway speaks stateless HTTP, so a decision has to exist before the call arrives.

That constraint is worth leaning into rather than resenting. "This agent may read anything and delete nothing" is a rule you can reason about calmly on a Tuesday. A dialog box during a long task is a rule you will click through.

Blocking destructive actions everywhere and relaxing where you have a reason is about a minute of work and removes an entire category of bad afternoon.

What ChatGPT can reach

The apps your workspace has connected, as tools named TOOLKIT_VERB_OBJECTGMAIL_LIST_MESSAGES, NOTION_CREATE_PAGE, HUBSPOT_UPDATE_DEAL. Blocked tools never appear in the list at all.

Something worth asking it early:

Look through my unread mail from this week, find anything that reads like a support request, and summarise them grouped by customer.

Two accounts

Connect an app twice and each connection keeps its own credential — a personal Gmail and a work Gmail stay genuinely separate. Their tools are addressed apart with a suffix (GMAIL_LIST_MESSAGES__work), while the bare name keeps routing to your default, so nothing that was working breaks when you add the second.

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