Zendesk MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides AI assistants like Claude with seamless integration to Zendesk Support. Enables natural language interactions with Zendesk tickets, allowing you to search, create, update, and manage support tickets through conversational AI.

✨ Features

• 🎫 Complete Ticket Management: Create, read, update, and search Zendesk tickets

• 💬 Comments & Notes: Add public comments and private internal notes

• 🔍 Advanced Search: Search tickets using Zendesk's powerful query syntax

• 🔗 Incident Management: Retrieve and manage linked incident tickets

• 🏷️ Tag Management: Add and manage ticket tags and metadata

• 🏢 Brand Support: List brands and search/analyze tickets by brand

• 📊 Ticket Analysis: Analyze tickets for root cause analysis with full comment history

• 📈 Trend Analysis: Sample tickets per day over time for pattern detection

• 🎛️ Field Discovery: List all ticket fields with IDs, types, and dropdown options

• 📝 QA Integration: Access Zendesk QA (formerly Klaus) reviews, CSAT, quizzes, and scorecards

• ⏱️ Ticket Metrics: Pull response times, resolution times, and reopen counts per ticket

• 🕵️ Ticket Audits: Full field-level change history for any ticket

• 📦 Incremental Exports: Cursor-based bulk ticket exports for large dataset pulls

• 🤖 AI Agent Export: Download bot conversation exports from Zendesk AI Agents

• 👷 Workforce Management: Access WFM activities, reports, shifts, and time-off data

• 🔒 Secure Authentication: Uses Zendesk API tokens for secure access

• 🚀 Easy Installation: Available via npm, npx, or manual setup

Related MCP server: Zulip MCP Server

🚀 Quick Start

Option 1: NPM Installation (Recommended)

npm install -g zd-mcp-server

Option 2: Use with npx (No Installation)

npx zd-mcp-server

Option 3: Development Setup

git clone https://github.com/famousdrew/zd-mcp-server.git
cd zd-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

⚙️ Configuration

Environment Variables

Set these environment variables in your system or MCP client configuration:

export ZENDESK_EMAIL="your-email@company.com"
export ZENDESK_TOKEN="your-zendesk-api-token"
export ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN="your-company"  # from https://your-company.zendesk.com

# Optional: For Zendesk QA (formerly Klaus) features
export ZENDESK_QA_API_TOKEN="your-qa-api-token"

# Optional: For Workforce Management features
export ZENDESK_WFM_API_TOKEN="your-wfm-api-token"

# Optional: For AI Agent conversation export features
export ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_TOKEN="your-ai-agents-api-token"
export ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_ORG_ID="your-organization-id"
export ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_BOT_ID="your-bot-id"
export ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_REGION="us"  # "us" (default) or "eu"

Claude Desktop Setup

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

Location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

• Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zendesk": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "zd-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "ZENDESK_EMAIL": "your-email@company.com",
        "ZENDESK_TOKEN": "your-zendesk-api-token",
        "ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN": "your-company"
      }
    }
  }
}

Alternative (if installed globally):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zendesk": {
      "command": "zd-mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "ZENDESK_EMAIL": "your-email@company.com",
        "ZENDESK_TOKEN": "your-zendesk-api-token",
        "ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN": "your-company"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code (CLI) Setup

claude mcp add zendesk \
  --transport stdio \
  --env ZENDESK_EMAIL=your-email@company.com \
  --env ZENDESK_TOKEN=your-zendesk-api-token \
  --env ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN=your-company \
  -- npx -y zd-mcp-server

Cursor IDE Setup

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zendesk": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "zd-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "ZENDESK_EMAIL": "your-email@company.com",
        "ZENDESK_TOKEN": "your-zendesk-api-token",
        "ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN": "your-company"
      }
    }
  }
}

Other MCP Clients

For other MCP-compatible clients (Cline, Windsurf, etc.), refer to their documentation for MCP server configuration. The server supports standard MCP protocols.

🛠️ Available Tools

Core Ticket Tools

Field & Brand Discovery

Analysis Tools

Ticket Metrics & History

AI Agent Export Tools (requires ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_TOKEN, ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_ORG_ID, ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_BOT_ID)

Data is available back to 2024-01-01. Files are generated once daily at midnight UTC — the most recent available date is yesterday. Signed URLs expire after 24 hours.

Zendesk QA Tools (requires ZENDESK_QA_API_TOKEN)

Workforce Management Tools (requires ZENDESK_WFM_API_TOKEN)

💬 Usage Examples

Once configured, you can use natural language with your AI assistant:

Ticket Management

"Show me all high priority tickets assigned to me"
"Create a new ticket: Customer can't access dashboard, priority urgent"
"Update ticket #12345 status to pending and add a note about waiting for customer response"

Search & Discovery

"Find all solved tickets from this week tagged with 'billing'"
"Search for open tickets containing 'password reset'"
"Show me tickets created by john@company.com in the last 30 days"

Customer Communication

"Add a public comment to ticket #789: 'We've identified the issue and working on a fix'"
"Add a private note: 'Customer confirmed the workaround is effective'"

Advanced Queries

"Find all problem tickets that have linked incidents"
"Show me escalated tickets that haven't been updated in 2 days"
"Get details for ticket #456 including all comments and history"

Brand & Field Analysis

"List all our Zendesk brands"
"Find open tickets for the Citadel brand"
"What custom fields do we have for tickets?"
"Search for tickets where Product Area is billing"

Root Cause Analysis

"Analyze the last 30 days of uAttend tickets and identify common issues"
"Get 100 Citadel tickets from the past week with full conversation history"
"Sample 25 tickets per day from CloudPunch for the last 20 days - what trends do you see?"

Ticket Metrics & History

"How long did ticket #12345 take to get a first reply?"
"Show me every status change on ticket #67890"
"Export all tickets updated since last Monday"

AI Agent Conversations

"Get the bot conversation export URLs for March 15th"
"Download and summarize yesterday's bot conversation data"

Zendesk QA Analysis

"List all QA workspaces"
"Get QA reviews from January 2024"
"Show CSAT scores for workspace #123 from last month"
"What disputes were filed in workspace #456 this quarter?"
"Get the quiz leaderboard"

🔑 Authentication Setup

Standard Zendesk API Token

1. Log in to your Zendesk account

2. Go to Admin Center → Apps and integrations → APIs → Zendesk API

3. Click Add API token, add a description, click Create, and copy the token

4. Important: Save this token securely — you won't see it again

AI Agent Export Token

1. Go to Zendesk AI Agents settings

2. Navigate to Settings → API

3. Generate a new API token and note your Organization ID and Bot ID

Find Your Subdomain

Your Zendesk URL format: https://YOUR-SUBDOMAIN.zendesk.com Use YOUR-SUBDOMAIN as the ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN value.

Required Permissions

Ensure your Zendesk user account has:

• Agent role (minimum)

• Ticket access permissions

• API access enabled

🔧 Development

Project Structure

zd-mcp-server/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts              # Server entry point
│   └── tools/
│       ├── index.ts          # Core Zendesk tool implementations
│       ├── ticket-fields.ts  # Field, brand, and analysis tools
│       ├── zendesk-qa.ts     # Zendesk QA Export API tools
│       ├── zendesk-wfm.ts    # Workforce Management tools
│       ├── zendesk-analytics.ts  # Ticket metrics, audits, incremental export
│       └── zendesk-ai-export.ts  # AI Agent conversation export
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── publish.yml       # Automated npm publishing on version tags
├── dist/                     # Compiled JavaScript
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── README.md

Building from Source

git clone https://github.com/famousdrew/zd-mcp-server.git
cd zd-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

Running Locally

# Start the server
npm start

# Development mode with auto-rebuild
npm run dev

Testing

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

Publishing a New Version

Bump the version in package.json, then push a version tag:

git tag v0.6.0
git push origin v0.6.0

GitHub Actions will build and publish to npm automatically.

🔍 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

❌ "Authentication failed" errors

• Verify your API token is correct and hasn't expired

• Ensure your email address matches your Zendesk account

• Check that your subdomain is spelled correctly (no .zendesk.com suffix)

❌ "Permission denied" errors

• Verify your Zendesk user has Agent permissions or higher

• Ensure API access is enabled for your account

❌ "Server not found" errors

• Ensure you've installed the package: npm install -g zd-mcp-server

• Try using npx instead: npx zd-mcp-server

• Check that your MCP client configuration file syntax is correct

❌ "Environment variables not set" errors

• Verify all three required variables are set: ZENDESK_EMAIL, ZENDESK_TOKEN, ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN

• Restart your MCP client after setting environment variables

❌ AI Export errors

• Confirm ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_TOKEN, ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_ORG_ID, and ZENDESK_AI_EXPORT_BOT_ID are all set

• Export files are only available for dates up to yesterday — today's data hasn't been generated yet

• Signed URLs expire after 24 hours; request fresh ones if you get a 403

Log Files

• Claude Desktop: ~/Library/Logs/Claude/ (macOS) or %APPDATA%/Claude/logs/ (Windows)

• Cursor: Check the output panel for MCP server logs

📚 Advanced Usage

Analysis Tool Parameters

zendesk_analyze_tickets

zendesk_sample_tickets

zendesk_incremental_tickets

Search Query Syntax

# Status-based searches
status:open status:pending status:solved

# Priority searches
priority:urgent priority:high priority:normal priority:low

# Date-based searches
created>2024-01-01 updated<2024-01-31

# Tag searches
tags:billing tags:technical-issue

# Requester searches
requester:customer@company.com

# Complex combinations
status:open priority:high created>2024-01-01 tags:billing

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository

2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)

3. Commit your changes

4. Push to the branch and open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🔗 Links

• GitHub: https://github.com/famousdrew/zd-mcp-server

• npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/zd-mcp-server

• Zendesk API Docs: https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/

• Model Context Protocol: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/

🆘 Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues

• Zendesk API: Zendesk Developer Documentation

• MCP Protocol: MCP Documentation

Made with ❤️ for the MCP and Zendesk communities