Spekboom MCP connector

Spekboom is a regenerative travel platform for Southern Africa: every stay funds a conservation or community cause (wildlife protection, fynbos restoration, rural education, community upliftment). This connector brings that catalogue into Claude so users can plan trips and see conservation impact in a single conversation.

Discovery and planning tools work without signing in:

• search_stays: find stays by location, dates, guests, experience type, cause, bird species, wildlife species, or wildlife highlights (e.g. Big Five).
• find_experiences: find stays by theme (birding, stargazing, wine, regenerative farms, wildlife/safari, and more).
• find_bird_species: look up a bird species (IUCN status, best months, top provinces) and the stays where hosts have recorded it.
• find_species: look up a mammal, tree, plant, marine, or reptile species and the stays where hosts have recorded it.
• compare_stays: compare 2 to 4 shortlisted stays side by side with a map.
• get_property_details: full details for one property, including amenities, units, bird and nature species, biomes, wildlife highlights, and the causes it supports.
• check_availability / get_availability_alternatives: real-time availability and indicative pricing, with nearby/date alternatives when a stay is full.
• plan_trip, search_along_route, suggest_itinerary: build a multi-stop trip and route between points.
• get_causes_supported: list the conservation and community causes on the platform.
• create_booking_link: generate a direct booking URL on spekboom.org (no payment is executed here; the user completes the booking on the site).

Everything above needs no account or sign-in. Two tools are gated behind optional OAuth (see Authentication & scopes): create_booking_request sends a booking request on the signed-in guest's behalf, and list_my_bookings reads their own bookings. Spekboom is request-to-book: a request is never confirmed until the host accepts, and payment always completes on spekboom.org, never inside the connector. create_booking_link remains the no-sign-in path: it hands the user a prefilled URL to finish on the site.

Hosts have a separate, fully authenticated connector at https://mcp.spekboom.org/host for managing their own listings, calendars, and pricing (scopes host:read / host:write).

1. Open Claude.ai → Settings → Connectors.
2. Click Add custom connector.
3. Name: Spekboom
   Server URL: https://mcp.spekboom.org/mcpCopy
4. Save. Claude will run the initialize handshake (should complete under 2s).
5. In a new chat, try: "find spekboom stays near Prince Albert for 2 guests in May that support rhino conservation".

No OAuth, API key, or account is required for the discovery and planning tools; they use public accommodation data. If you ask Claude to send a booking request for you, it will offer a Spekboom sign-in and request the scoped permissions described under Authentication & scopes.

The Gemini CLI reads MCP servers from ~/.gemini/settings.json. Add Spekboom as an httpUrl entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spekboom": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.spekboom.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Restart the Gemini CLI and the Spekboom tools appear alongside your other tools. Try: "use spekboom to find farm stays near Prince Albert for 2 guests". Same rate limits and privacy rules apply as for Claude, see below.

For Vertex AI Agent Engine or custom Gemini apps using the google-genai SDK, register https://mcp.spekboom.org/mcp as a streamable-HTTP MCP tool source, no auth headers required for the discovery tools.

The connector supports OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic client registration, so an agent can request exactly the access it needs and nothing more. Anonymous use covers all discovery tools; a bearer token unlocks the gated tools listed below.

Standard discovery endpoints:

• Authorisation server metadata (RFC 8414): https://www.spekboom.org/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
• Protected resource metadata (RFC 9728): https://mcp.spekboom.org/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource
• Dynamic client registration (RFC 7591): https://www.spekboom.org/api/oauth/register
• Token endpoint: https://www.spekboom.org/api/oauth/token

Tokens are short-lived (1 hour) with refresh tokens; clients are public (PKCE, no client secret). Requesting a scope outside the four above is refused rather than silently stripped.

• 60 requests per minute per IP.
• 500 requests per day per IP.
• A global daily quota also applies to protect service quality.
• Exceeding a limit returns a 429 with a Retry-After header.
• The connector is intended for real-time, user-driven conversational use with Claude. Bulk scraping, competitive pricing harvesting, and automated redistribution of listing data are not permitted and may result in your IP being blocked.
• Abuse or sustained high-volume programmatic use may trigger the global kill switch; we'll restore service as soon as the pattern is mitigated.

• Discovery tools require no authentication and involve no account linkage. The two OAuth-gated tools act only on the signed-in guest's own data, within the scopes they approved, and access can be revoked at any time (email support@spekboom.org if you need a grant removed).
• We log tool calls anonymously (tool name, salted hash of input, salted hash of IP, response time, success/error code) for abuse detection and quality metrics. Raw IPs and raw inputs are not stored.
• No personally identifiable information passes through this connector.
• See the full privacy policy and terms of service.

"Couldn't reach the MCP server" when adding the connector

The server may be warming up. Wait 30 seconds and retry. If it persists across several attempts, confirm the endpoint https://mcp.spekboom.org/mcp is reachable (POST only; a GET will return a 404 or method-not-allowed, which is expected).

"The search tool is throwing errors"

Usually an over-specific query. search_stays now returns { results, count, message? }, an empty resultsarray with count: 0 and a message means the query was valid but matched nothing. Try a broader location or remove filters.

429 Too Many Requests

Rate limit hit. Honour the Retry-After header. If legitimate high-volume use is needed, email support@spekboom.org.

Bookings aren't going through

This connector doesn't process payments. create_booking_linkreturns a URL; users complete the booking and payment on spekboom.org.

Questions, abuse reports, or integration help: support@spekboom.org.

This connector is operated by Spekboom. We control both the MCP endpoint and the underlying platform APIs it reads from.