Almost every connection problem comes down to one of a handful of things, and all of them are quick to fix. Find your symptom below.
The server does not show up at all
You added HelpKit but your assistant carries on as if nothing happened.
Restart the app properly. This fixes it most of the time. In Claude Desktop, quitting means ⌘Q on Mac, or the tray icon and then Quit on Windows. Closing the window is not enough, because the app keeps running in the background.
Check you pasted the whole address. It has to be https://connect.helpkit.so/mcp exactly, including the https:// at the front and the /mcp at the end.
Look for a switch. Some tools add a server turned off. In ChatGPT there is an extra step: open the + (tools) menu inside a chat and enable the HelpKit connector there. Forgetting this is the single most common ChatGPT problem.
The sign-in never finishes
You clicked connect, a browser window opened, and nothing came of it.
Let the window finish. Sign in, click Approve, and wait until it tells you that you can close it. Closing it early cancels the connection.
Check which account you signed in to. The approval applies to whichever HelpKit account that browser is signed in to. If you have a personal and a work login, sign out and back in as the right one, then try again.
Do not leave it sitting. The approval expires after a couple of minutes for security. If you got distracted, just start again.
Try a normal browser window. Private and incognito windows sometimes block the handover back to your AI tool.
Messages about your key
"Unauthorized"
Your tool reached HelpKit but did not identify itself. Either the browser approval never completed, or you are using a key and it is missing from your configuration.
If you are using a key, check the header reads exactly:
Authorization: Bearer hk_YOUR_KEYThe word Bearer, one space, then your key starting with hk_. A missing Bearer is the usual slip.
"Invalid or revoked key"
The key is real but no longer valid. Usually it was deleted in Account Settings → MCP, or part of it was lost while copying, since keys are long and easy to truncate. Create a fresh one and paste it in one go rather than typing any of it.
Messages about your project
"This project has no subscription"
Every HelpKit project needs its own plan, and additional projects start without one. Ask your assistant to list your projects and it will show which ones it can reach.
"MCP needs the Editor role"
You have the Viewer role on that help center. A project admin can change it under Settings → Members.
Your assistant refuses to write
"Notion is not connected"
This is the most common one by far, and it is a one minute fix.
Your assistant can read your help center but cannot create or edit anything, because HelpKit has not been given access to your Notion pages.
It can read a language but not write to it
Each language or version is a separate Notion page and needs its own access. Reading keeps working from your last sync, which is exactly why this one hides so well.
"Write and sync access is off"
Publishing, editing a live article, renaming a category and syncing are all refused unless the project owner turns that switch on.
Your assistant finds nothing
If your help center is new, there may genuinely be nothing yet. Analytics need traffic before they say anything useful.
If you asked about a draft, remember that drafts are only visible once Notion access is in place. Without it, your assistant sees your live articles only.
Try widening the question. Ask for all articles rather than a filtered set, or drop a date range. Your assistant may have applied a narrower filter than you intended.
You published something but it is not on the site
That is expected, and it is not a fault. Publishing marks an article as ready. A sync is what rebuilds your live help center.
Ask your assistant to sync, or run a sync from your dashboard. New articles and new categories need a full help center sync, not a single article one.
You pasted the address into your browser and got an error page
Also expected. https://connect.helpkit.so/mcp is not a web page, it is an address for AI tools to talk to. The page you see explains exactly that, and its presence confirms the server is running normally.
The Claude Desktop config file route will not start
If you edited claude_desktop_config.json rather than adding a connector, that method runs a small helper that needs Node.js on your computer.
Install Node from nodejs.org and restart Claude, or switch to the connector method instead, which needs nothing installed at all.
Still stuck?
Get in touch and include three things:
- Which AI tool you are using, and whether you connected through the browser or with a key
- The exact message you saw
- What you asked your assistant to do
That is usually enough for us to spot it straight away.
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