Bento MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Bento - the email marketing and analytics platform. This server enables AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and others to interact with your Bento account.

Features

• Subscriber Management - Import, update, and lookup subscribers with full custom field support
• Tagging - Create and manage tags
• Event Tracking - Track custom events that can trigger automations
• Field Management - Create and list custom fields
• Broadcasts - Create and list email campaigns
• Automations - View sequences and workflows
• Email Templates - Read and update email template content
• Statistics - Get site-level stats and ads attribution reports

Installation

npm install -g @bentonow/bento-mcp

Or run directly with npx:

npx @bentonow/bento-mcp

Configuration

The server requires three environment variables:

Variable	Description
BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY	Your Bento publishable API key
BENTO_SECRET_KEY	Your Bento secret API key
BENTO_SITE_UUID	Your Bento site UUID

You can find these in your Bento account settings.

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bento": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bentonow/bento-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY": "your-publishable-key",
        "BENTO_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key",
        "BENTO_SITE_UUID": "your-site-uuid"
      }
    }
  }
}

Installing the .mcpb bundle in Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop can also load the packaged bundle directly, so you don’t need to edit JSON by hand:

1. Run npm run build (or npm run bundle, which aliases build). This compiles the server, syncs manifest.json, and creates bento-mcp.mcpb in the repo root.
2. In Finder/Explorer, double-click bento-mcp.mcpb (or open Claude Desktop → Tools (hammer icon) → Install Bundle → Choose File… and select bento-mcp.mcpb).
3. Claude will show the Bento MCP install dialog and prompt for the manifest’s user config fields:
   • Bento Publishable Key → your BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY
   • Bento Secret Key → your BENTO_SECRET_KEY
   • Bento Site UUID → your BENTO_SITE_UUID
4. Click Install. Claude Desktop copies the bundle and remembers the credentials. The server now appears in the Tools list and can be toggled on/off like any other MCP integration.

To ship an update, re-run npm run build (or npm run bundle) and repeat steps 2–4 (Claude Desktop will replace the previous bundle version automatically).

Usage with Claude Code

Run this command to add the Bento MCP server to Claude Code:

claude mcp add bento --env BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=your-publishable-key --env BENTO_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key --env BENTO_SITE_UUID=your-site-uuid -- npx -y @bentonow/bento-mcp

Usage with OpenCode

Add to your OpenCode config file (~/.config/opencode/config.json):

{
  "mcp": {
    "bento": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "@bentonow/bento-mcp"],
      "environment": {
        "BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY": "your-publishable-key",
        "BENTO_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key",
        "BENTO_SITE_UUID": "your-site-uuid"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: OpenCode does not support referencing environment variables from a .env file. You must enter your actual credential values directly in the configuration file.

Usage with Cursor

Add to your Cursor MCP settings (~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bento": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@bentonow/bento-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY": "your-publishable-key",
        "BENTO_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key",
        "BENTO_SITE_UUID": "your-site-uuid"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: Cursor does not support referencing environment variables from a .env file. You must enter your actual credential values directly in the configuration file.

Available Tools

Subscribers

Tool	Description
bento_get_subscriber	Look up subscriber details by email or UUID
bento_batch_import_subscribers	Import or update up to 1000 subscribers with custom fields and tags

Tags

Tool	Description
bento_list_tags	List all tags in your account
bento_create_tag	Create a new tag

Fields

Tool	Description
bento_list_fields	List all custom fields
bento_create_field	Create a new custom field

Events

Tool	Description
bento_track_event	Track a custom event for a subscriber (can trigger automations)

Statistics

Tool	Description
bento_get_site_stats	Get site statistics including subscriber and broadcast counts
bento_get_ads_stats	Get ads attribution stats by source, campaign, medium, content, or ad

Broadcasts

Tool	Description
bento_list_broadcasts	List all broadcasts/campaigns
bento_create_broadcast	Create a draft broadcast

Automations

Tool	Description
bento_list_automations	List sequences and/or workflows with their templates (supports separate pagination for each type)
bento_list_workflows	List workflows with their embedded email templates and stats

Sequences

Tool	Description
bento_list_sequences	List all email sequences with their email templates (supports pagination)
bento_create_sequence_email	Create a new email template in a sequence (accepts sequence ID or exact name) with optional delay settings

Email Templates

Tool	Description
bento_get_email_template	Get email template content by ID
bento_update_email_template	Update email template subject and/or content

Example Prompts

Once configured, you can ask your AI assistant things like:

• "Look up the subscriber john@example.com in Bento"
• "Import these 5 subscribers with the 'newsletter' tag"
• "Show me the site statistics from Bento"
• "How many people came from YouTube last week?"
• "How much did we earn from Meta last month?"
• "How is the summer_2015 campaign doing?"
• "What are all the tags in my Bento account?"
• "Create a new broadcast for the spring sale"
• "List all my email sequences"
• "Show me my workflows and highlight the email templates"
• "Create a welcome email in sequence abc123 that sends after 2 days"
• "Add a follow-up email to my onboarding sequence with a 1 week delay"
• "Track a 'feature_used' event for user@example.com"

Response Format

All tool responses are formatted to be informative for both humans and LLMs:

• Success responses include context about the operation performed and structured data
• Error responses include the isError flag and helpful error messages with suggested fixes
• Empty results are clearly indicated (e.g., "No items found")
• Batch operations report both successful and total counts

Error Handling

The server provides helpful error messages for common issues:

• Missing credentials: Clear message about which environment variables are missing
• Authentication failures: Guidance to check API keys
• Rate limiting: Information about waiting before retrying
• Not found errors: Clear indication when resources don't exist
• API errors: Helpful messages for temporary service issues

Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/bentonow/bento-mcp.git
cd bento-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Lint
npm run lint

# Format
npm run format

# Run locally
BENTO_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=xxx BENTO_SECRET_KEY=xxx BENTO_SITE_UUID=xxx npm start

MCP manifest & bundle

• manifest.json declares the server name, entry point, tool roster, and required runtime per the MCP manifest specification so launchers can discover the server automatically.
• Run npm run sync:manifest whenever the package version changes; it keeps manifest.json's version field in sync with package.json so there's only one authoritative version number.
• npm run build (and npm run bundle, which aliases it) validates bundle contents after packing and fails if blocked paths are present or required runtime files are missing.
• .mcpbignore provides a strict allowlist so local docs/config files are excluded from release bundles.

License

MIT - see LICENSE

Links

• Bento - Email marketing platform
• Bento Node SDK - The underlying SDK
• Model Context Protocol - MCP specification