Use the answer.cloud MCP with an Existing Website
How developers can use Claude or Codex to manage an Answer Cloud companion while their main website stays on its current host.
This page is for developers whose main website stays on its current host. Claude or Codex can use the Answer Cloud MCP to manage the site's AI companion, publish companion content, configure chat, and review how people and answer engines use that content.
If Answer Cloud hosts your complete website, see Use the MCP with a hosted website.
What Claude or Codex can do
With the Answer Cloud MCP connected, your agent can:
- Find the Answer Cloud companion associated with your organization.
- Inspect the content collections and templates already configured for it.
- Update the companion's layouts, styles, and chat theme to match your main website.
- Draft, preview, publish, archive, and update companion content.
- Deploy companion templates and assets, check the deployment, and roll back if needed.
- Configure the generated chat experience.
- Test whether published content appears in search and chat results.
- Review traffic, crawler activity, chat activity, and answer-engine visibility.
- Export chat transcripts for sentiment or topic analysis.
You usually do not need to choose individual tools. Tell Claude or Codex what you want to accomplish, and it can inspect the setup before deciding what to change.
What it does not change
The MCP does not take over your main website. Your current hosting, DNS, repository, and deployment pipeline remain in place.
When the agent deploys through Answer Cloud, it should send only the companion's templates and supporting assets. It should not upload a copy of your main website or try to replace its existing deployment process.
A typical companion update
For a normal update, the agent can handle this workflow:
- Find the companion connected to your organization.
- Inspect its existing content collections and use them as the source of truth.
- Update the relevant templates, styles, or content.
- Preview the work locally or through a private content preview.
- Deploy or publish only after you explicitly ask it to go live.
- Verify the result on the companion site and check for deployment warnings.
- Test a few searches or chat questions against the new content.
The agent should not invent new content collections based only on a prompt. If a new collection is needed, describe the content type and fields you want or create it in the Answer Cloud dashboard first.
Content updates
Claude or Codex can draft content, show you a private preview, and publish it after approval. A useful request is:
Update the installation guide using the current repository, give me a preview, and wait for approval before publishing.
It can also update the visual templates shared by a collection. Ask it to preserve your existing site's design system when changing the companion's typography, colors, spacing, or chat theme.
Chat and reporting
The agent can configure the generated chat experience, test retrieval, review analytics, and inspect the latest answer-engine visibility report.
For large chat datasets, ask it to work in batches rather than loading every transcript at once. For example:
Analyze customer sentiment in all chats from the last quarter. Use only customer messages, process the chats in batches, and summarize common frustrations and requests.
Connect Claude or Codex
Add https://answer.cloud/mcp as a Streamable HTTP MCP server and use OAuth. On first connection, sign in and choose the Answer Cloud organization the agent may access. Do not add a custom authorization header to an OAuth connection.
Once connected, try:
Find the Answer Cloud companion for this organization, list its content collections, and explain what you can safely update. Do not make changes yet.