Connect Claude to Ahrefs

Read backlinks, organic keywords, competitors and keyword research data from Ahrefs. Toolspoke puts 15 of its actions behind one MCP endpoint that Claude, Cursor, and Codex all speak.

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Connection: Provider REST API
Authentication: API key
Actions exposed: 15
What a call bills: Nothing
Adapter: Maintained by Toolspoke

Connected in three steps

1
Install Ahrefs
Open the marketplace in your workspace, add Ahrefs to the project your agents work in, and it appears on the gateway immediately.
2
Connect the credential
Authenticate with api key. Where to get one, and what it has to be able to reach, is the next section.
3
Point your agent at the gateway
Give your client one address, https://toolspoke.com/mcp. Claude Code takes it as a command, Claude and Claude Desktop add it as a custom connector, and Cursor, Codex and VS Code each read it from a config file of their own.

.mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "toolspoke": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://toolspoke.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

One block covers every tool you have installed. Ahrefs shows up in the client as soon as your policy allows it, and so does everything else you install later.

Where the address goes, per client

Claude Code: Run it in your project, then /mcp to sign in
claude mcp add --transport http toolspoke https://toolspoke.com/mcp
Claude and Claude Desktop: Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector
https://toolspoke.com/mcp
Cursor: ~/.cursor/mcp.json, or .cursor/mcp.json for one project
{ "mcpServers": { "toolspoke": { "url": "https://toolspoke.com/mcp" } } }
Codex: ~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.toolspoke] url = "https://toolspoke.com/mcp"
VS Code: .vscode/mcp.json, or the MCP: Add Server command
{ "servers": { "toolspoke": { "type": "http", "url": "https://toolspoke.com/mcp" } } }

What Ahrefs asks for

API key. You provide it once, when you install the connector. Toolspoke encrypts it at rest and decrypts it only for the length of a single call, and the gateway attaches it to the outbound request itself, so it is never part of the arguments an agent sends.

API keyRequired: Ahrefs → Account settings → API keys (app.ahrefs.com/account/api-keys) → Create API key. Only workspace owners and admins can create one, and the plan must include API units.

What Claude can do in Ahrefs

15 actions, each one declared and named by the connector rather than discovered at runtime. A workspace policy grants a person all of them, a hand-picked selection, everything on the read side, everything on the write side, or none.

Reads: 15Reads
Writes: 0Writes
Destructive: 0Destructive

Reads

Fetches data and changes nothing.

get_limits_and_usage
The subscription, API-unit limits and units used so far for this key and its workspace. Free - Ahrefs charges no units for it - and it fails on a revoked key or a workspace without API access, so an install tests itself with it.
domain_rating
A domain's Domain Rating (0-100) and Ahrefs Rank on a date (today by default).
site_metrics
Organic and paid headline metrics for a site - organic keywords, traffic and traffic value, paid keywords and traffic.
backlinks_stats
Backlink totals for a site - live and all-time backlinks and referring domains.
list_backlinks
Individual backlinks pointing at a site, with source and target URL, anchor, source Domain Rating and follow status. Billed per row.
list_refdomains
The domains linking to a site, with each one's Domain Rating, link count and first and last seen dates. Billed per row.
organic_keywords
The keywords a site ranks for in organic search, with volume, best position, ranking URL and traffic. Billed per row.
top_pages
A site's pages ranked by organic traffic, with each page's top keyword. Billed per row.
organic_competitors
The sites competing with this one for organic keywords in one country, with shared keywords and traffic. Billed per row.
keywords_overview
Volume, difficulty, CPC, traffic potential and parent topic for a list of keywords in one country.
matching_terms
Keyword ideas containing the seed terms, or questions built on them, with volume and difficulty. Billed per row.
related_terms
Keywords related to the seeds - ones the top-ranking pages also rank for, or that searchers also talk about. Billed per row.
serp_overview
The pages ranking for one keyword in one country, with position, Domain Rating, backlinks and traffic.
list_projects
The projects in this Ahrefs workspace - the id rank_tracker_overview needs, plus each project's URL and keyword count. Free.
rank_tracker_overview
Rank Tracker positions for one project's tracked keywords on a date - keyword, position, ranking URL, volume and traffic.

What it will not do

Enforced by the gateway rather than left to convention, which is why each of these can be stated flatly.

It cannot call anything else: The 15 actions above are the whole of it. A call to any other name is refused before it reaches Ahrefs rather than forwarded on, and connecting your account does not add to the list: it is fixed by the connector, not discovered at run time.
It only reads: Every action here reads. Nothing this connector can do changes anything in Ahrefs.
It reaches no further than your credential: Toolspoke holds no access to Ahrefs of its own. Every call carries the credential you stored and nothing besides, so whatever that credential cannot reach, this connector cannot reach either.
It never hears from Ahrefs: Nothing is pushed to it. There is no webhook, no subscription and no polling, so this connector cannot notice by itself that something changed in Ahrefs. An agent has to ask.
It does not smooth over provider limits: Toolspoke does not retry, queue or back off around Ahrefs's own rate limits. A call that Ahrefs refuses comes back to the agent as a failed call.

Before you connect it

What can Claude do in Ahrefs?

15 named actions: 15 that only read. They include get_limits_and_usage, domain_rating and site_metrics. Nothing outside that list is reachable: the connector declares each operation by name rather than proxying whatever an agent asks for.

What credentials does the Ahrefs connector need?

API key. The connector asks for api key. Values are encrypted at rest and attached to the outbound request by the gateway, so they are never part of the arguments an agent sends and never reach the audit log.

Does the Ahrefs connector work with Cursor and Codex, or only Claude?

Any client that speaks MCP, and every one of them gets the same 15 actions. There is a single address, https://toolspoke.com/mcp. Claude Code adds it with claude mcp add --transport http, Claude and Claude Desktop take it as a custom connector in settings, Cursor reads it from .cursor/mcp.json, Codex from ~/.codex/config.toml, and VS Code from .vscode/mcp.json. Each of them signs in to the gateway itself, so there is no key to paste.

What does the Ahrefs connector not do?

The 15 actions above are the whole of it. A call to any other name is refused before it reaches Ahrefs rather than forwarded on, and connecting your account does not add to the list: it is fixed by the connector, not discovered at run time. Every action here reads. Nothing this connector can do changes anything in Ahrefs. Toolspoke holds no access to Ahrefs of its own. Every call carries the credential you stored and nothing besides, so whatever that credential cannot reach, this connector cannot reach either. Nothing is pushed to it. There is no webhook, no subscription and no polling, so this connector cannot notice by itself that something changed in Ahrefs. An agent has to ask. Toolspoke does not retry, queue or back off around Ahrefs's own rate limits. A call that Ahrefs refuses comes back to the agent as a failed call.

Can I limit which actions an agent can call?

Yes, in two places. The project switches Ahrefs's actions on and off one at a time, for everyone in the project at once, and the screen groups them by read, write and destructive so turning off everything that deletes is one click. An individual agent key can then be narrowed further, to particular toolkits in a project and to particular actions in a toolkit. Whatever it was granted, a key never reaches a project its owner cannot.

What gets recorded when an agent calls Ahrefs?

Every attempt, with the agent that made it and the person that agent belongs to, the full request payload, the response payload, the status, the duration, and what the call cost in sandbox time and model tokens. Values whose key names a secret are masked out before the record is shown to anyone. An operation the connector marks as not retained never has its response body written at all, so the gateway keeps no second copy of what was read.

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