Your team can ask ChatGPT what customers could not find, draft the missing articles and keep the rest current, without leaving the chat. Your customers can connect it too, and get answers from your published articles, linked to the source.
For your team on Growth and Catalyst, and in their 14-day trials. For your customers on every plan.
Search, write, organize and measure your knowledge base: 29 tools, inside the permissions you approve.
https://mcp.helpcenter.io
Every live, public help center open to search engines has one, on by default. Customers add it to ChatGPT and get answers from your published articles.
https://your-help-center/mcp
Paste a customer's question and ChatGPT checks it against your help center: what you already cover, what readers searched for and missed, and what to change. It drafts the reply with links to your articles, and the fix for the article itself.
Nothing changes until you say so: by default ChatGPT asks before every write, and on Catalyst an edit to a live article can be staged privately for your team to publish.
You: A customer asks how to change the email they sign in with. Draft a reply from our help center.
Tool call:
helpcenter_search_articles
reads content
Assistant: “Update your profile” covers it. Here is a reply you can send:
Go to Profile → Email and enter the new address. We send a confirmation link there, and the change applies once you click it. help.northwind.energy/account/update-your-profile
Tool call:
helpcenter_get_search_queries
reads analytics
Assistant: One more thing: “change email” was searched 23 times last month. Results came back, but nobody opened them, because the title never mentions email. Shall I fix the title?
You: Yes. Stage it so the team can review it.
Tool call:
helpcenter_stage_article_changes
confirmed by you, not live yet
Assistant: Staged. Readers keep seeing the current title until your team publishes the change.
Things your team can ask ChatGPT today. Each one runs on tools HelpCenter.io gives it, inside the permissions you approve.
Ask: What did customers search for last month and not find?
The searches that came back empty, ranked by demand. Plus the ones where results showed and nobody clicked, which usually means a title to fix rather than an article to write.
Ask: Which of our most-read articles are rated worst this quarter? Suggest fixes for the top three.
The worst-rated articles first, weighted towards the ones people actually read, and each one read in full before a fix is suggested.
Ask: Draft a reply to this customer email from our help center, and link the articles you used.
A reply grounded in what you have actually published, with links your customer can follow. Nothing in your help center changes.
Ask: Turn this support thread into a help article and save it as a draft in Billing.
A new article in the category you name, saved as a draft, so publishing stays your call.
Ask: Translate “Refunds on annual plans” into German and add it as the German version.
The German title and body saved on the same article, in any language your help center has switched on.
Ask: Move every article about invoices into a new Invoices category, and write it a one-line description.
The new category with its description, and each article moved into it. Nothing is deleted.
Customer: How do I download my invoices from Northwind?
Tool calls:
search
fetch
Northwind's help center, no sign-in
Assistant: Open Billing → Invoices in Northwind, pick the months you need and choose Download. You get one PDF per invoice, or a single CSV for your accountant.
Source: help.northwind.energy/billing/download-your-invoices
Every live, public HelpCenter.io help center that search engines may index is also an MCP server, at its own address with /mcp on the end. A customer who adds it to ChatGPT gets answers searched and read from your published articles, with a link to the one it used.
searchfetchlist_categoriesYour customers add it with developer mode in ChatGPT on the web, or their workspace admin adds it for everyone. Private, password-protected, IP-restricted and embed-only help centers have no public server, because an anonymous visitor could not read them either. Nor does one that has turned off Allow search engines, or one that is not live.
In ChatGPT on the web:
https://mcp.helpcenter.io as its MCP server URL, and pick OAuth for authentication.
Customers connect your public server the same way, with your help center's /mcp URL and No Authentication.
On Business, Enterprise and Edu, an admin creates the app once and publishes it from Workspace settings → Apps. Teammates then find it in their own Apps settings and sign in to HelpCenter.io as themselves, so each person reaches only the help centers they already work on.
On Enterprise and Edu, admins can also choose which of its actions the workspace may use before they publish it.
{
"type": "mcp",
"server_label": "helpcenter",
"server_url": "https://mcp.helpcenter.io",
"authorization": "<your HelpCenter.io API key>",
"allowed_tools": [
"helpcenter_search_articles",
"helpcenter_get_article"
],
"require_approval": "never"
}One entry in the tools array: an agent that searches and reads your articles, and can change nothing, so it needs no approval prompts. Drop allowed_tools to offer all 29, and keep approval on for the ones that write. Keys come from your help center's Settings → API Keys.
codex mcp add helpcenter --url https://mcp.helpcenter.iocodex mcp login helpcenter
The second command opens the HelpCenter.io sign-in in your browser.
Access is granted help center by help center, and you can take it back whenever you like. Your password never reaches ChatGPT: it signs in on our own consent screen.
ChatGPT signs in through HelpCenter.io over OAuth 2.1. You choose which help centers it can reach and see every permission it asks for before you allow it.
Every HelpCenter.io tool says whether it only reads, and the destructive ones say so too. ChatGPT treats anything that is not read-only as a write, and asks you before running it unless you change its approval settings.
New articles can be saved as drafts, so publishing stays your call. On Catalyst, an edit to a live article can be staged privately for your team to publish or discard.
Change which help centers ChatGPT can reach, or disconnect it, in Account → Connected Apps. The next request it makes is refused.
Reader email addresses are withheld unless a connection with write access asks for them. IP addresses are never exposed, and search data is aggregated daily.
A help center's own MCP server answers as an anonymous visitor would be answered: published, public articles. Drafts, private and unlisted articles and your team's notes never leave.
No add-on and no charge per tool call. The public server comes with every help center, and the MCP server for your team comes with the plan, 14-day trial included.
from $29 /mo, billed annually
Bootstrap, or $39 month to month
$119 /mo, billed annually
or $149 month to month
$179 /mo, billed annually
or $199 month to month
On the ChatGPT side, adding an app by URL takes developer mode, on the web. OpenAI lists full read-and-write support for Business, Enterprise and Edu, and read-only connections on Pro. Your ChatGPT subscription is billed by OpenAI. OpenAI's current requirements.
Bootstrap and older plans priced below Growth do not include the MCP server for your team. Compare every plan.
Want the whole tool list? It is on the MCP server page. Something else? Our team answers from our help center.
Not in ChatGPT's Plugin Directory. You connect HelpCenter.io yourself, as a developer-mode app with the URL https://mcp.helpcenter.io, and the connection steps walk through it. The original ChatGPT plugins beta, which this page once took sign-ups for, closed in April 2024. Plugins in ChatGPT today are built on MCP, the open standard both HelpCenter.io servers speak.
Adding a server by URL takes ChatGPT's developer mode, on the web. OpenAI's help center lists full read-and-write support for Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces, where an admin switches developer mode on, and read-only connections on Pro. It is not available in ChatGPT's mobile apps. OpenAI changes these rules, and its article on developer mode has the current list.
Connecting ChatGPT for your team is included in the Growth and Catalyst plans, and in the 14-day trials of both. Staged changes and version history need Catalyst. Your help center's own public MCP server, the one your customers connect, is on every plan and on by default.
Not on the HelpCenter.io side. There is no add-on to buy and no charge per tool call, and standard API rate limits apply. Your ChatGPT subscription is separate, and billed by OpenAI.
Not by default. ChatGPT treats every tool that is not marked read-only as a write, and asks you before running it unless you change its approval settings. New articles can be saved as drafts, and on Catalyst an edit to a live article can be staged for your team to publish or discard. Deleting a category, discarding a staged edit and restoring an old version are marked destructive.
Exactly what an anonymous visitor to your help center can read: published, public articles and the categories they sit in. Drafts, private and unlisted articles, and your team's internal notes never leave. It is read-only, and you can switch it off in Settings → Public MCP server.
OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs on December 11, 2026, and their actions do not carry over: its migration guide says to rebuild them on a connector or a custom MCP server. HelpCenter.io already runs one, so there is no OpenAPI schema to maintain: connect ChatGPT to https://mcp.helpcenter.io, and let your customers use your help center's own /mcp address.
Yes. Point the Responses API's MCP tool at https://mcp.helpcenter.io with a HelpCenter.io API key, or add the same URL to Codex and sign in. Either way you get the same 29 tools. ChatGPT itself cannot send an API key, which is why it signs in instead.
Open Account → Connected Apps in HelpCenter.io and disconnect it, or change which help centers it can reach. You can also remove the app from ChatGPT's own settings.
Start a 14-day trial, connect ChatGPT, and ask what your customers could not find. No credit card needed.