Integrations give the AI new tools to work with, such as your analytics, your CMS, or your site. This guide shows you how to connect one, then how to choose what it can do and understand what it exposes: its tools, safety hints, server instructions, external websites, and source.
Before you start
- You’re a manager of your team. Connecting integrations is a manager-only setting.
- If the integration uses an API key, have that key from the provider ready.
Connect an integration
- Go to Settings, then Integrations.
- Select Add new integration.
- Choose the integration you want from the list. Ones you’ve already connected are marked Connected.
- Finish connecting. What you do here depends on the integration:
- Sign in with the provider. The integration opens the provider’s sign-in page. Sign in and approve access, and you return to Growth Method, connected.
- Enter an API key. The integration shows its server details and asks for your API key. Paste it, then select Connect.
- No credentials needed. Some integrations connect as soon as you select Connect.
- If the integration offers a choice of what to use, such as which analytics property, you’re asked to select it. Pick what you want the AI to use, then finish.
To connect a remote MCP server that isn’t in the list, select Add custom integration at the top of the list and enter its name and server URL. Then choose how it connects: Sign in (OAuth) opens a browser sign-in with the server, or API key lets you paste a key the server gave you. With sign-in there’s no key to copy, and Growth Method keeps the connection fresh for you.
Once connected, the integration appears in your list marked Connected. Select Edit on it, or View on the built-in one, to manage what it can do. The rest of this guide explains what you’ll find there.
Note: to change what an integration is scoped to later, such as which analytics property it uses, disconnect and reconnect it. This is deliberate, so a connected integration’s access can’t be quietly widened.
If a connection stops working
An integration’s access can stop working, usually because its sign-in has expired or someone revoked it at the provider’s end. When that happens, the AI can no longer use its tools.
You don’t have to watch for this. Growth Method checks your connected integrations every day, and also notices the moment one fails while the AI is using it. Either way, it marks the integration as disconnected and emails your team’s managers, so someone can reconnect it before it holds up your work.
To reconnect:
- Go to Settings, then Integrations. The affected integration is marked as disconnected, with a short note on what went wrong.
- Reconnect it using the same steps as connecting: sign in with the provider again, or re-enter its API key.
The AI can use its tools again as soon as it reconnects.
Chat with one integration
A chat normally has every connected integration’s tools available. When you want the AI to focus on a single source, you can start a chat scoped to only that one.
- Go to Settings, then Integrations.
- Find the integration you want and select the chat icon next to it.
- A chat opens using only that integration’s tools, plus the always-on built-in Growth Method ones.
The chat keeps this scope even if you reload or reopen it later, and it lists what it’s using at the top. Because fewer tools are loaded, a focused chat uses less context and costs less to run. Anyone on your team can start one, not only managers.
Tools
Tools are the actions an integration gives the AI, such as reading your analytics, searching your site, or creating a page. Each integration’s panel lists its tools, and you choose which ones the AI can use by switching them on or off.
Some integrations expose hundreds of tools. Use Select all to turn every tool on, or the clear button on the field to turn them all off, then switch on only the few you need.
Next to each tool you’ll see an approximate token cost. Every tool you leave on is added to each chat, so turning off the ones you don’t need keeps chats leaner and cheaper. The built-in Growth Method tools are always on and can’t be switched off.
Tool safety hints
Not every tool is equally safe to run without asking. A tool that only reads data is harmless to run automatically. A tool that changes or deletes something is not.
Growth Method uses each tool’s safety hints to decide:
- Read-only tools run automatically. The AI uses them without interrupting you.
- Everything else asks for approval. If a tool can change or delete something, or doesn’t say what it does, the AI asks you to approve it before it runs.
This matters most for a custom agent running on its own: unless you’ve set it to act autonomously, it will only use a tool unattended when that tool is clearly marked read-only, and asks you to approve anything else. The panel tells you how many of an integration’s tools declare these hints, so you can see how much an automated agent could do without you.
Server instructions
Some integrations send the AI their own guidance on how to use their tools, written by whoever built the integration. Growth Method shows this to you read-only under Server instructions, so you can see exactly what the integration is telling the AI. If an integration provides none, the panel says so.
External websites
Some integrations mention external websites in the guidance they send the AI, often links to a provider’s own documentation. Growth Method scans that guidance and lists any it finds under External websites, so you can see what an integration points the AI at. If it mentions none, the panel says so.
Seeing a website here doesn’t mean the AI visits it. The AI can only open a web address if you’ve connected a separate tool that browses the web, which it doesn’t do on its own. The note is there for transparency, so nothing an integration references is hidden from you.
Source
Source tells you where an integration and its tools come from: built into Growth Method, a remote service at a web address, or a local server. Use it to check you recognise and trust the provider before you rely on its tools.
How this maps to the MCP standard
Many integrations connect through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI to external tools. The terms above line up with it directly:
- Tools are MCP tools.
- Server instructions are the MCP server’s
instructions. - Tool safety hints are MCP tool annotations. The standard defines four:
readOnlyHint: the tool only reads, and changes nothing.destructiveHint: if the tool does change something, the change may be permanent or irreversible (deleting, rather than adding).idempotentHint: running the same call again has no extra effect.openWorldHint: the tool reaches out to the wider world, like an external web API, rather than staying in a closed, local domain.
Growth Method acts on the first two, read-only and destructive, to decide what runs automatically and what needs your approval. idempotentHint and openWorldHint are part of the standard but don’t currently change how Growth Method behaves.
Some integrations, including the built-in Growth Method tools and certain analytics integrations, use built-in tools rather than MCP. These hints don’t apply to them, and their panel says so.
One important point from the standard: these are hints, not guarantees, and the standard tells apps to treat them as untrusted. That’s why Growth Method errs on the side of caution. If a tool isn’t clearly marked read-only, the AI asks before using it, rather than assuming it’s safe.