## What is the MCP Server?

The MCP (Model Context Protocol) server lets AI assistants like Claude interact with your Yando boards. You can ask Claude to create boards, add sticky notes, export content, manage projects, and more — all through natural conversation.

For example, you can say "Create a SWOT Analysis board for our product launch" and Claude will create the board with the right template, or "Add a red sticky note about the budget risk" and it will appear on your board in real time.

## Prerequisites

1. A Yando account
2. An API key (see below)
3. An MCP-compatible AI client (Claude Desktop, Claude.ai, or Cursor)

## Step 1: Create an API Key

1. Click your avatar in the top-right corner and go to **Settings**
2. Scroll down to the **API Keys** section
3. Click **Create API Key**
4. Give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Claude Desktop")
5. Copy the key immediately — it is only shown once

Your API key starts with `ynd_` and looks like `ynd_abc123def456...`. Keep it secret — anyone with this key can access your boards.

## Step 2: Connect Your AI Client

Choose the setup that matches your client:

### Claude.ai

Claude.ai connects to the Yando MCP server over the internet using OAuth.

1. Go to **Settings → MCP Servers → Add custom**
2. Name: `Yando`
3. URL: `https://mcp.bigdeez.com/mcp`
4. Leave the OAuth fields blank — Claude.ai discovers them automatically
5. You'll be redirected to a consent page — enter your Yando API key to approve access

### Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop connects to the remote MCP server using your API key directly.

1. Open Claude Desktop settings (gear icon → Developer → Edit Config)
2. Add this to your configuration:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yando": {
      "url": "https://mcp.bigdeez.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ynd_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Replace `ynd_your_key_here` with your API key.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

### Cursor

Cursor uses the same configuration as Claude Desktop:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yando": {
      "url": "https://mcp.bigdeez.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ynd_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

## What Can Claude Do?

Once connected, Claude has access to 44 tools organized into these categories:

### Board Management

- **List your boards** — See all boards you own or have access to
- **Create boards** — Create blank boards or use a template (e.g., Business Model Canvas, SWOT Analysis)
- **Update boards** — Change the title or description
- **Delete boards** — Remove boards you own

### Working with Objects

- **Add many sticky notes at once** — Fill a whole board in a single step
- **Add a sticky note** — Place a single color-coded note, optionally targeting a zone by name
- **Add text boxes** — Add text boxes for longer content, optionally auto-fitted to a zone
- **Update objects** — Change text, position, or other properties
- **Delete objects** — Remove objects from a board
- **List objects** — See everything on a board

**Zone-aware placement.** When Claude adds notes to a zone, Yando works out where to put them — you can say "add five ideas to the Strengths zone" and they'll be laid out neatly inside it without overlapping. Claude never needs to know the exact coordinates, or even look up the zone first; the zone's name is enough.

**Filling a board is one step, not dozens.** Asking Claude to "fill this SWOT board out" sends all the notes together in a single request rather than one per note. A 16-note board takes one step instead of 32. Beyond being much faster, this is what keeps a board-filling session comfortably within the API rate limit (see **Rate Limits** below).

### Sticky Note Colors

Sticky note colors carry meaning. When asking Claude to add notes, you can specify a color:

| Color | Meaning |
|-------|---------|
| Yellow | Ideas and suggestions |
| Green | Decisions and agreements |
| Red | Concerns and blockers |
| Blue | Action items and tasks |
| Purple | Questions and follow-ups |
| Orange | General notes |

### Templates

- **Browse templates** — See your built-in and custom templates
- **Get template details** — View zones and layout information
- **Create custom templates** — Describe a framework in plain language and Claude will build the template (zones, colors, shapes)
- **Update templates** — Rename, resize, or edit zones on templates you own
- **Clone templates** — Copy any accessible template as a starting point
- **Add / update / remove zones** — Modify individual zones without rewriting the whole template
- **Add / delete scaffold objects** — Manage the pre-placed text boxes and sticky notes that ship with a template
- **Validate a draft layout** — Catch overlapping zones, angle wrap-around bugs, coverage gaps, and sizing issues before saving
- **Render a template preview** — Get a PNG snapshot of a draft or saved template so Claude can visually confirm the layout

### Template Layout Helpers

These tools compute zone coordinates for common patterns so Claude doesn't have to do the arithmetic:

- **Grid zones** — Even rows × columns with padding
- **Strip zones** — Horizontal or vertical bands
- **Pie zones** — Evenly divided circular wedges
- **Rect-sector zones** — Angular wedges that fill a rectangle (full coverage, no dead corners)
- **Matrix zones** — 2×2 matrices (e.g., Impact/Effort, Eisenhower)

### Export & Import

- **Export to JSON** — Get a structured export of a board's content
- **Export to Markdown** — Get a readable text version of a board
- **Import meeting transcripts** — Create a board from a video conference transcript with AI-powered extraction

### Board History

- **List snapshots** — See daily snapshots of a board's history
- **View a snapshot** — See the board's full state at a point in time

### Projects & Pages

- **Manage projects** — Create, update, list, and delete projects
- **Manage pages** — Create, update, list, and delete markdown pages within projects

## Example Conversations

Here are some things you can ask Claude once the MCP server is connected:

**Creating a board:**
> "Create a new SWOT Analysis board called 'Q3 Product Review'"

**Adding ideas to a specific zone:**
> "Add these as yellow sticky notes to the Strengths zone: faster onboarding, better docs, improved search"

**Filling out a whole board at once:**
> "Fill out this SWOT board for a mid-size UK coffee roastery — four or five points in each quadrant, green for strengths, red for threats"

**Flagging concerns:**
> "Add a red sticky note about the timeline risk for the API migration"

**Building a custom template:**
> "Create a custom template for a RACI chart — four vertical columns for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed"

**Previewing a template:**
> "Show me what my new RACI template looks like before I use it"

**Exporting content:**
> "Export my 'Sprint Planning' board as Markdown"

**Working with projects:**
> "Create a project called 'Product Launch' and add a page with our launch checklist"

**Reviewing history:**
> "Show me the snapshots for the Q2 Review board — what changed last week?"

**Meeting notes:**
> "Import this meeting transcript to a new board and organize the key points"

## Rate Limits

To keep the service responsive for everyone, API access is limited to **100 requests per hour** per account, with separate allowances for creating and deleting boards.

In normal use you will not notice this. Claude batches its work — filling a board sends every note in one request rather than one per note — so a typical "create a board and fill it in" conversation uses around three requests, and you could run dozens of those in an hour.

**If you do hit the limit,** Claude will report an error mentioning rate limiting or a "429" response. The limit resets on a rolling one-hour window, so waiting a few minutes and continuing is usually enough.

**Running demos or a heavy internal integration?** Administrators can lift the rate limit entirely for a specific account. If you regularly hit the limit through legitimate use, contact your Yando administrator rather than working around it.

> **Tip:** If Claude starts adding notes one at a time and runs into the limit, ask it to "add all the notes in one go" — it has a tool for exactly that.

## Security Notes

- Your API key is never stored in plain text — it is securely hashed on the server
- Each API key only grants access to boards you own or have been invited to
- You can revoke an API key at any time from **Settings → API Keys**
- API keys can have an expiration date for extra security
- If you suspect a key has been compromised, revoke it immediately and create a new one

## Troubleshooting

**Claude says it can't find the Yando tools:**
- Make sure your API key is valid (not expired or revoked)
- Restart your AI client after changing the configuration

**"Authentication failed" errors:**
- Verify your API key starts with `ynd_`
- Check that the key hasn't been revoked in Settings → API Keys

**"Rate limit exceeded" or 429 errors:**
- You have made more than 100 API requests in the past hour — see the **Rate Limits** section above
- Wait a few minutes and continue; the limit resets on a rolling window
- If Claude was adding sticky notes one at a time, ask it to add them all in one request instead
- If you hit this regularly through normal use, ask your administrator to exempt your account
- Make sure the MCP server URL is correct

**Objects not appearing on the board:**
- Refresh the board page — objects added via MCP appear in real time via WebSocket, but a refresh ensures everything is synced
- Check that you have editor access to the board

**Claude.ai OAuth consent page not loading:**
- Make sure the MCP server URL is correct and reachable
- Try removing and re-adding the MCP server in Claude.ai settings