Tendem MCP server

Tendem MCP

Delegate tasks to vetted human experts — straight from your AI assistant. 🧑‍🔬🤝🤖

Tendem gives your AI direct access to vetted human experts for the work an agent alone can't nail: judgment-heavy research, competitive analysis, copywriting and editing, design review, data cleaning, and complex multi-step tasks. You (or your agent) submit a task in plain English — Tendem scopes the work, quotes a transparent price, and delivers verified results back into the chat as files, reports, or structured outputs. Agent plus expert raises the quality ceiling of what you can ship well beyond what either does alone.

Ideal for founders, creators, operators, and consultants who need reliable expert output without managing freelancers.

Get started → agent.tendem.ai.

This repo is the official distribution home for the Tendem MCP plugin — the part that lives in your AI client. Install it and your assistant arrives already knowing how to drive the full Tendem lifecycle: create → scope → approve → fetch, with clean polling and spend safety built in.

The MCP server itself is hosted at https://mcp.tendem.ai/mcp — it is not in this repo. This repo contains the client-side plugins, skills, and rules that teach your AI client to use the hosted server well.

Start using Tendem

1. The web interface

Sign in at agent.tendem.ai to create your account, top up your balance, and watch tasks run end-to-end. The full output of every task — markdown plus downloadable files — is always available there, no matter which client you launched it from.

2. Install the plugin in your AI client

The hosted server URL is the same everywhere: https://mcp.tendem.ai/mcp (streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use). Pick your client:

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add Toloka/tendem-mcp
/plugin install tendem@tendem-mcp

OpenAI Codex / ChatGPT

codex plugin marketplace add Toloka/tendem-mcp
codex plugin add tendem@tendem-mcp

Complete the MCP server's OAuth login on first tool use.

GitHub Copilot CLI

copilot plugin marketplace add Toloka/tendem-mcp
copilot plugin install tendem@tendem-mcp

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install https://github.com/Toloka/tendem-mcp

Then authenticate inside Gemini with /mcp auth tendem. The catalog entry is gemini-extension.json at the repo root.

Kiro

Kiro Powers register through the IDE. Point Kiro at the tendem-power/ steering bundle in this repo, then connect the tendem MCP server when prompted.

Manual (any MCP-compatible client)

Add to your client's MCP config and sign in when prompted:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tendem": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.tendem.ai/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Build agentic pipelines (API-key auth)

For headless, CI, or programmatic use — where the interactive OAuth flow isn't viable — authenticate with a Tendem API key instead: sign in at agent.tendem.ai/mcp and create one under the Agent builders tab.

Python / LangChain / LangGraph: skip the raw MCP wiring and use langchain-tendem — four price-capped tools that let an agent create a task, answer the service's questions, and collect the verified result, with all polling in plain Python (no LLM, no tokens).

For every other stack, a native "type": "http" remote server triggers the interactive OAuth flow, so to pass a static API key instead, bridge the connection through mcp-remote — a local stdio process that connects to the hosted URL and injects your Authorization: ApiKey header:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tendem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.tendem.ai/mcp",
        "--transport",
        "http-only",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: ApiKey <your-tendem-api-key>"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Keep the token out of source control (inject it from an environment variable or secret store). Your custom agent loop drives the same eleven tools the plugin uses — create_task, get_task, get_contract, get_task_result, list_tasks, approve_task, cancel_task, send_message, read_chat, get_account, get_file_upload_url — to implement the create → scope → approve → poll → fetch lifecycle yourself. The server ships a tendem-quickstart prompt with a full walkthrough.

Spend safety: approve_task is what triggers a charge. In an automated pipeline, gate it behind your own approval logic and check get_account first — an insufficient balance returns a task-bound top-up URL, not an error to retry.

What's in this repo

What the plugin teaches your assistant

Installing does more than wire up the connector — it ships steering so your AI handles Tendem correctly out of the box:

• tendem-tasks skill — the end-to-end path (create → scope → approve → fetch), silent long-polling without busy-loops, scope negotiation, and live-verified file upload/download mechanics. Loads only when work actually involves Tendem.
• /tendem-task, /tendem-status, /tendem-result — explicit entry points to submit, check, and fetch a task (in Codex these are $tendem-task etc.).
• tendem-watcher agent (Claude / Copilot) — a background watcher that polls a running task at a slow pace and pings you the moment it needs you.
• Notification hook — a desktop notification when a task transitions to needing you (quote ready, top-up needed, input needed, result ready).

For contributors

• AGENTS.md — guide for AI agents working in this repo
• CONTRIBUTING.md — how to contribute
• Per-client manifests: Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Gemini CLI

Links

• Product: tendem.ai · App: agent.tendem.ai
• Overview: Connect your AI agent to human experts via MCP
• Legal: Privacy Policy · Terms of Use
• Support: Help center

Tendem MCP is part of the Model Context Protocol ecosystem.