> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.nops.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Clara MCP
> Ask Clara about your cloud costs from Cursor, Claude, or any other AI tool that supports MCP.
## Overview
**Clara** is nOps’s FinOps assistant. In the product you can chat with Clara from the [dashboard](/platform/dashboard#ask-clara-from-the-dashboard), via [Ask Clara](/clara/clara-chat) on several pages, and on [canvases](/clara/canvas).
The **Clara MCP** brings that same assistant into the AI tool you already work in — **Cursor**, **Claude**, or any other client that supports the [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io). Install a plugin (or add the server config), sign in once, and you can:
* Ask about spend, savings, usage, and commitments in plain language
* Work with your reports, dashboards, budgets, cost allocations, unit economics, contracts, and MAP projects without leaving your editor
* See anomalies and optimization recommendations as soon as nOps finds them
* Put an analysis on a schedule so the answer shows up in Slack or email on its own
You need an **active nOps account** and the same data access you have in the web app. MCP does not bypass organization permissions.
***
## Capabilities
Clara MCP works with your real nOps data and the things you've built on top of it — reports, budgets, cost allocations, contracts, and more. Here's what you can do, grouped by the kind of work.
Some actions — **create**, **update**, **delete**, **send** — change things in your nOps account and need an Admin or Owner role. Those are bolded below, and you can read more in [Read vs. write access](#read-vs-write-access).
### Asking questions about your spend
Clara answers from a set of prepared views of your cost data, called **datasets**. Each one covers a topic — AWS billing, commitments, AI tool spend — with a known set of fields to group and filter by, so the same question always comes back the same way.
| You can | What happens |
| --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| See which datasets you have | Clara lists what your account can query. |
| Look inside a dataset | Clara shows the fields and metrics available, so you know what you can ask for. |
| Ask a question | Clara runs it and returns the rows. Your data stays scoped to your organization automatically. |
A good first message after connecting: *"List my Clara datasets."* Then *"What's in the Commitment Management Analysis dataset?"* before you dig into spend or savings.
What you'll see depends on your setup — which clouds you've connected, whether Commitment Management and ShareSave are turned on, which third-party tools you've integrated, and your role. Typical datasets:
| Dataset | What you can ask about |
| ------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Explorer Cost & Usage** | Your detailed AWS bill — spend and usage over time, by account, service, tag, purchase type, and more. The best starting point for most questions. |
| **Commitment Management Analysis** | How your Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are performing: savings rate, coverage, savings vs. on-demand pricing, and how much commitment is going unused. |
| **Commitment Burndown** | What AWS commitments you still hold, how well they're being used, and when they run out. |
| **GCP Commitment Inventory** | The same view for your **GCP** committed use discounts. |
| **Recommendations** | What nOps suggests you buy for Compute, Databases, and AI, and how much it would save per year. |
| **Savings Realizations** | Savings you've actually realized through ShareSave Risk-Free (excludes the current month). |
| **Real-time Billing Commitment Management** | The same savings picture with current-month usage included, up to the last few days. |
| **AWS Cost Anomalies** | Unusual spend AWS has flagged — how much extra it cost, how serious it is, and the account, region, and usage type behind it. |
| **Cursor Cost & Usage** | Cursor spend and usage by person, model, and hour — useful for charging teams back and spotting unused seats. Needs the [Cursor integration](/integrations/cursor-admin-api). |
| **Claude.ai Enterprise Cost & Usage** | Claude.ai Enterprise spend and usage by person, model, and hour, including each person's spend limit. Needs the [Claude Enterprise integration](/integrations/claude-enterprise). |
### Exploring spend and building reports
The everyday work you'd do in [Inform](/inform/introduction) — dig into costs, save a view, share it with your team — without switching windows.
| You can | In nOps | What happens |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Explore costs | [Explorer](/inform/explorer) | Totals, trends over time, and heatmaps of your spend and usage, plus a list of the values you can filter on. |
| Compare two periods | [Explorer](/inform/explorer) | Clara shows what changed between the two, and what drove the change. |
| Work with dashboards | [Explorer Dashboard](/inform/explorer-dashboard) | See your dashboards, and **create**, **update**, **copy**, or **delete** them. |
| Work with reports | [Reports](/inform/reports) | See your saved reports and their numbers, **create**, **update**, or **delete** them, and **send** one to your team. |
| Check insights | [Insights](/inform/insights) | See the spend anomalies and savings opportunities nOps has found. |
| Manage MAP projects | [MAP Manager](/inform/map-manager) | See eligible accounts and project resources, and **create**, **update**, or **delete** projects. |
### Splitting costs across teams
Assign spend to the teams, products, or departments that own it, so everyone sees their share.
| You can | What happens |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Manage cost allocations | See your allocations and totals, and **create**, **update**, **copy**, or **delete** them. |
| Manage the rules | See how spend is assigned, and **create**, **update**, **reorder**, or **delete** rules. |
| Manage the buckets | Change the set of teams, products, or departments an allocation splits across. |
| See the results | Get the dollar amount per bucket, the resources inside a bucket, and how the split has changed over time. |
| Preview before you commit | Try a rule change and see the resulting split before saving it. |
| Keep up with new values | Find newly available values — a new tag or account — and pull them into your existing rules. |
### Budgets, unit economics, and contracts
The guardrails you set in [Operate](/operate/budgets): what you plan to spend, what a unit of your business costs, and what you've committed to your cloud provider.
| You can | In nOps | What happens |
| -------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Manage budgets | [Budgets](/operate/budgets) | See budgets and how they're tracking, **create**, **update**, or **delete** them, export to CSV, and **send** one out. |
| Set up alerts | [Budgets](/operate/budgets) | **Create**, **update**, or **delete** the thresholds that notify you — for example at 90% of budget. |
| Plan next period | [Budgets](/operate/budgets) | Build a plan line by line, or have nOps **generate** one from your spend history. |
| Track unit economics | [Business Unit Economics](/operate/business-unit-economics) | See cost per unit of your business, **create** or **update** the setup and its numbers, preview spend, and **send** results. |
| Track contracts | [Contract Tracker](/operate/contract-tracker) | See your cloud contracts and how much you've burned through, and **create**, **update**, or **delete** them. |
### Commitments and savings
How your Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are doing, and what nOps thinks you should buy next — the same picture as [Optimize](/optimize/commitment-inventory).
| You can ask about | What you'll get |
| ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| What you hold | The commitments still on the books, how well they're used, and when they expire. |
| How they're performing | Your savings rate, how much of your usage is covered, and the savings you've actually realized. |
| What to buy next | nOps purchase recommendations and the savings each one projects. |
### AI and LLM spend
What your AI tools cost, and whether the seats you're paying for are being used.
| You can | What happens |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Spot AI cost spikes | See anomalies specific to your AI and LLM spend. |
| Set your AI view | See and **change** the dashboard your team lands on for AI costs. |
| Track seats | See who has a seat for each AI tool and how much they're actually using it. |
### Answers on a schedule
Set a question up once and have the answer show up on its own — in [Slack or Teams](/platform/slack-and-teams), by [email](/platform/notifications), or in your [Clara Feed](/clara/feed).
| You can | What happens |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Schedule a question | Save a recurring question to Clara, turn it on or off, **run** it now, or **delete** it. |
| Schedule a delivery | Have a report or budget sent out on a cadence to Slack, Teams, or email. |
| Check what ran | Review your Clara Feed history and the result of any single run. |
### Things to try
| If you want to | Ask |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Get oriented | *"List my Clara datasets."* |
| Understand last month's bill | *"Break down our AWS spend last month by service and account."* |
| Check commitment performance | *"How are our Savings Plans and Reserved Instances performing this year?"* |
| Find coverage gaps | *"Where is our commitment coverage below 90%?"* |
| See what's expiring | *"How much commitment value do we still hold, and when does it run out?"* |
| Find more savings | *"What is nOps recommending we buy, and what would it save?"* |
| Investigate a spike | *"Any unusual spend in the last two weeks, and what drove it?"* |
| See who owns what | *"How is our spend split by team, and what's unallocated?"* |
| Put a limit in place | *"Create a budget for our Cursor spend and alert me at 90%."* |
| Review AI tool costs | *"Who are our top ten Cursor users by cost this billing cycle?"* |
| Stop asking manually | *"Send me this commitment coverage report in Slack every Monday morning."* |
***
## Where to get install packages
The fastest path is inside nOps:
1. Sign in to nOps and open **Settings**.
2. Under **Organization Settings**, open **Plugins**, then find **Clara MCP & Connectors**.
3. Under **Latest release**, expand **Download assets** and grab the zip for your tool (when available):
* **`clara-cursor-plugin-*.zip`** — Cursor
* **`clara-claude-plugin-*.zip`** — Claude Desktop or Claude Code
You can also download releases from the open-source repo: [nops-io/clara-mcp](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/releases).
For **other MCP clients**, use the standalone server config on the Plugins page or in [Other MCP clients](#other-mcp-clients-manual-setup) below. Detailed install steps for Cursor and Claude are in that repo’s docs (linked from **Settings → Plugins**).
***
## Install in Cursor
### Prerequisites
* [Cursor](https://www.cursor.com) installed
* An active nOps account
### Steps
Get the latest **`clara-cursor-plugin-v*.zip`** from **Settings → Plugins → Clara MCP & Connectors** or [GitHub Releases](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/releases).
Unzip into your **project root** (or your home directory for a global install):
```sh theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
unzip clara-cursor-plugin-v*.zip -d /path/to/your/project
```
This adds `.cursor/mcp.json`, `.cursor/rules/clara.mdc`, and `.cursor/skills/` where Cursor expects them.
Open **Cursor Settings → Tools & MCP** and turn on the **clara** server.
Run **Cmd+Shift+P → Reload Window** (Mac) or the equivalent on Windows / Linux.
### Verify
In Cursor Chat, ask: *"List my Clara datasets."*
On the first request, Cursor prompts you to **authorize with nOps** (OAuth). Complete login in the browser; later requests reuse your session.
### What the Cursor package includes
| Path | Purpose |
| ------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `.cursor/mcp.json` | Registers the Clara MCP server |
| `.cursor/rules/clara.mdc` | Guidance so Cursor uses Clara tools well |
| `.cursor/skills/query-clara/` | General FinOps / cost questions |
| `.cursor/skills/commitment-analysis/` | Savings rate, coverage, RI/SP burndown |
### Global install (all projects)
Extract to your home directory instead of a single repo:
```sh theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
unzip clara-cursor-plugin-v*.zip -d ~
```
***
## Install in Claude Desktop
### Prerequisites
* Claude **desktop app**
* An active nOps account
### Steps
Get the latest **`clara-claude-plugin-v*.zip`** from **Settings → Plugins → Clara MCP & Connectors** or [GitHub Releases](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/releases).
In Claude, go to **Settings → Plugins** and click **+** next to **Personal plugins**.
Choose the downloaded **`clara-claude-plugin-v*.zip`**. Clara appears under **Personal plugins** in the sidebar.
Open the Clara plugin → **Connectors** → **Install** next to **clara**, then complete the **nOps OAuth** prompt.
### Verify
Start a conversation and ask: *"List my Clara datasets."*
### What the Claude package includes
| Path | Purpose |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| `.claude-plugin/plugin.json` | Plugin manifest |
| `.mcp.json` | Clara MCP server config |
| `skills/query-clara/` | General Clara queries |
| `skills/commitment-analysis/` | Commitment performance analysis |
***
## Install with Claude Code (CLI)
If you use **Claude Code** (`claude` CLI) instead of the desktop app:
1. Download **`clara-claude-plugin-v*.zip`** (same package as desktop).
2. Install the plugin:
```sh theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
claude plugin install ./clara-claude-plugin-v*.zip
```
For a single session without a permanent install:
```sh theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
claude --plugin-dir ./clara-claude-plugin-v*.zip
```
3. Update when new releases ship:
```sh theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
claude plugin update clara
```
4. Connect the **clara** MCP connector and complete OAuth (same as desktop).
**Requirement:** Claude Code **v2.1.128** or later.
***
## Other MCP clients (manual setup)
Official plugin zips for **Cursor** and **Claude** include MCP config automatically. For **any other client**, add an HTTP MCP server with the same shape as below. Use the **exact `url` value** from **Settings → Plugins → Clara MCP & Connectors → Standalone MCP (reference)** in nOps (it is configured per environment, not duplicated in this doc):
```json theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
{
"mcpServers": {
"clara": {
"type": "http",
"url": ""
}
}
}
```
| Client | Typical config location |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Cursor** | `.cursor/mcp.json` in the project, or `~/.cursor/mcp.json` globally |
| **Claude Code** | `.mcp.json` in the project, or `~/.claude/mcp.json` globally |
| **Other** | See your client’s MCP documentation |
You can copy the same JSON from **Settings → Plugins → Clara MCP & Connectors → Standalone MCP (reference)** in nOps.
Clara uses **OAuth on first use** — there is no long-lived API key to paste into the config file.
***
## Authentication
1. Ask Clara anything in your AI tool (for example *"Show my cloud costs for last month"*).
2. On the **first** request, you'll be sent to an **nOps login** page. Sign in with the account that should own the data.
3. After authorization, the session is stored; you should not need to log in on every message.
**Re-authenticate** if your session expires or you switch nOps organizations: run a Clara tool again and follow the prompt, or sign out of nOps in the browser and sign back in first.
You'll only ever see the data your nOps role allows. If something is off limits, Clara will say so rather than return it.
### What you can change
Clara follows your existing **nOps role** — there's nothing extra to set up:
| Your nOps role | What you can do |
| --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Member** | Ask questions and read everything you can see in the app — reports, dashboards, budgets, allocations, contracts, and insights |
| **Admin** / **Owner** | All of the above, plus creating, updating, and deleting — the bolded actions in [Capabilities](#capabilities) |
If an action fails with a permissions error, check your role with an organization admin, or ask them to make the change for you.
Creating, changing, and deleting through Clara affects your real nOps account, and deletes can't be undone from your AI tool. It's worth asking Clara to confirm what it's about to change before it does.
***
## Clara in nOps vs. Clara MCP
| | **In nOps (web)** | **Clara MCP (your AI tool)** |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Where** | Dashboard, Ask Clara, canvases | Cursor, Claude, or another MCP client |
| **Best for** | Charts and canvases you share with the team | Quick questions while you work, and anything alongside your code |
| **Setup** | None — it's already there | Install the plugin, sign in once |
Many teams use **both**: canvases for dashboards they share, and Clara MCP in the tool they're in all day.
***
## Troubleshooting
### Stuck on login, or "not authorized"
* Sign out of nOps in your browser, sign in again, then ask Clara something.
* Double-check you signed in to the **right** nOps organization.
### Clara doesn't show up
* **Cursor:** open **Settings → Tools & MCP** and make sure **clara** is switched on, then reload the window.
* **Claude:** open **Connectors** and make sure **clara** is installed and connected.
* Restart your AI tool after installing a new version of the plugin.
### Clara responds but the numbers look empty or wrong
* Check that your nOps role can see the data you're asking about.
* For savings questions, end your date range before the **current month** — most savings data lags by about a month.
* Ask Clara what's in the dataset. Available fields depend on your integrations and setup.
### Network
Clara MCP connects over **HTTPS**. If you're behind a corporate proxy or firewall, it needs to allow outbound access to the nOps MCP host.
### More help
* Repo guides: [install-cursor](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/blob/main/docs/install-cursor.md), [install-claude](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/blob/main/docs/install-claude.md), [auth](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/blob/main/docs/auth.md), [troubleshooting](https://github.com/nops-io/clara-mcp/blob/main/docs/troubleshooting.md)
* nOps support: [support.nops.io](https://support.nops.io) or in-app chat
***
Ask Clara about spend and commitments in Slack — @mentions, DMs, and scheduled thread delivery.
Use Clara inside nOps without installing MCP — ideal when you want charts and canvases in the same session.
Pin charts, open shared canvases, and launch Ask Clara from your home page.
Connect AWS, GCP, and Azure so Clara has cost and commitment data to query.
Download Cursor and Claude plugin zips (and manual MCP config for other clients), release notes, and source docs.