Connect Contextick to Cursor

Cursor reads MCP servers from a JSON config file. You'll create a Contextick API key, paste it into that file along with the Contextick endpoint, and you're done.

What you'll need

• Cursor, on any plan — the free plan works.
• A Contextick API key. Create one at your account page under MCP connection → API keys → Create API key.

Two things about the key. It's shown once, right after you create it — copy it then, because you can't view it again. And the name you give the key becomes the origin recorded on everything saved through it, so calling this one "Cursor" means you can later tell what you saved in Cursor from what you saved elsewhere.

Steps

1. Create an API key at your account page and copy it.
2. Open your Cursor MCP config file. Use ~/.cursor/mcp.json to make Contextick available in every project, or .cursor/mcp.json inside a project to limit it to that one. Create the file if it doesn't exist.
3. Add Contextick:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "contextick": {
         "url": "https://contextick.ai/mcp",
         "headers": {
           "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:CONTEXTICK_API_KEY}"
         }
       }
     }
   }

   Cursor expands ${env:CONTEXTICK_API_KEY} from your environment, which keeps the key out of the file — worth doing if the file is in a project you might commit. If you'd rather not set an environment variable, paste the key directly in place of ${env:CONTEXTICK_API_KEY}, and don't commit the file.

4. Save the file and restart Cursor. Contextick appears in the MCP list on Cursor's Customize page.

Check it worked

Test it in two parts, and make the second part a new chat. If you ask in the same conversation, Cursor can answer from what you just said without ever calling Contextick — so a broken connection would still look like it worked.

1. Save something you'd actually want back. At the end of a session where you worked out a convention, say: "Save the error-handling pattern we just settled on to Contextick."
2. Open a new chat and ask: "What's our error-handling pattern?"

If it comes back in the new chat, you're connected — and you've just seen the point of it: you didn't have to explain the convention again. That note is also available in Claude, ChatGPT, or any other AI you connect to Contextick.

If it doesn't show up

• Contextick isn't in the MCP list. Restart Cursor — it reads the config at startup. Then check the JSON is valid; a stray comma is the usual culprit.
• It's listed but every call fails. That's almost always the key. If you used ${env:CONTEXTICK_API_KEY}, make sure the variable is set in the environment Cursor was launched from — launching from the dock won't pick up a variable you set in your shell profile.
• You lost the key. Keys are shown once. Create a new one and delete the old one from your account page.

Official docs

Cursor's own MCP guide: Model Context Protocol in Cursor.