Quick Start

This guide walks you through setting up Contextful for your team. You’ll connect your tools, deploy a recipe, and get your first useful answer — all in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• A Contextful account (sign up here)
• Admin access to at least one data source (Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Slack, etc.)

Setup

1. Create your workspace

   Name your workspace and invite your team. Every member gets their own permissions scope.

2. Connect your tools

   Go to Connections → Add. Select a source and complete the OAuth flow. No API keys, no webhooks, no configuration files.

   Recommended first connections for finance teams:

   • QuickBooks or Xero (accounting)
   • Google Workspace (docs + email)
   • Slack (team communication)

3. Deploy a recipe

   Go to Recipes → browse the catalog. Pick one (we recommend Month-End Close Assistant to start). Click Deploy.

   The recipe configures your agent’s scope, permissions, and system prompt automatically.

4. Ask your first question

   Open Chat and ask something like:

   • “What invoices are still open for this month?”
   • “Summarize the latest Slack discussion about the Q2 budget”
   • “Which vendor contracts renew in the next 30 days?”

   The agent answers with citations linking back to the source record.

What happens next

• Background sync fills in historical data (past 30 days first, then full history)
• Incremental sync keeps everything fresh (typically every 15 minutes)
• Audit log records every agent interaction under Permissions → Activity

For power users

Every workspace exposes an MCP endpoint. Connect from your terminal:

# In Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP client
mcp connect contextful --workspace your-workspace-id

Same knowledge, same permissions, different interface.