MCP

This feature is available on Business plans and above

What is MCP?

MCP (short for Model Context Protocol) is a "protocol" that lets AI assistants (AI apps/chatbots — for example, the AI app you already chat with every day) connect directly to your Back in Stock data.

In simple terms: instead of logging into your Shopify admin and clicking through multiple pages to check who is waiting for a product, which variants are in demand, or how much revenue your back-in-stock emails generated... you can simply type a question in plain language to your AI assistant (for example: "Which variants have the most customers waiting?") and the AI will fetch real data from your store to answer you.

MCP only lets the AI read data (read-only). The AI cannot create, edit, or delete any notification request, email, or setting in your store through MCP. Any changes still have to be made by you directly in the Doran admin.

What data can the AI read through MCP?

Once you connect MCP, your AI assistant can look up the following groups of data in your store:

Back-in-stock requests: who signed up to be notified (name, email, phone, product/variant), the request status, whether the email was sent, opened or clicked, and answers to your sign-up form questions. Can be filtered by product, variant, email, phone, or status.
Demand by variant: for each product variant, how many customers are still waiting and how many have already been notified.
Email performance: back-in-stock emails sent, opened, clicked, and the revenue attributed to orders placed after an email, over any time range.
Top revenue products: the top 5 products by revenue driven by back-in-stock emails in a time range (returned with the Shopify product ID).

Discount codes and credit/debit values are never exposed through MCP.

To get started, go to Settings > MCP in the app.

Step 1: Turn on MCP and generate an API Key

The API Key is your store's own "key" that proves to your AI assistant it's allowed to read data from your store (and only your store). Each API Key is tied to exactly one store.

Turn on the "Enable MCP" toggle

On the MCP card, turn on the Enable MCP toggle and click Save.

Click "Generate" to create an API Key

Click the Generate button next to the API key field. The system will create a key starting with bp_live_... and display it right in the API key field.

Copy the API Key right away

As soon as it's created, you'll see a warning banner: "Copy your API key now". This matters a lot: this API Key is shown only once. If you leave the page before copying it, you won't be able to view it again — you'll have to click Regenerate to create a new key (and the old one stops working the moment the new one is created).

Click the API key field to copy it, then save it somewhere safe (for example, a password manager) before moving on.

Don't share this API Key with anyone or paste it anywhere public (forums, public GitHub repos, public chat groups...). Anyone who has this API Key can use it to read your store's Back in Stock data.

Step 2: Get the MCP Server URL

Besides the API Key, your AI assistant also needs the address (URL) of the MCP server. This address is the same for every store:

https://prod.bp-mcp.s.doran.app/mcp

Depending on the AI app you're using, there are 2 ways to pass your API Key along with the address above:

Option 1 — custom header (recommended if your AI app supports it): keep the address above as is, and add a header named x-api-key with the value set to the API Key you copied in Step 1.
Option 2 — embed it directly in the address (use this when your AI app only accepts a single URL and doesn't support custom headers): append your API Key to the end of the address:
```
https://prod.bp-mcp.s.doran.app/mcp/<your-API-Key>
```
For example, if your API Key is bp_live_abc123, the full address would be https://prod.bp-mcp.s.doran.app/mcp/bp_live_abc123.

Example configuration

Some AI apps let you add a remote MCP server by filling in a form (name + URL + headers), while others ask you to paste a block of JSON into a configuration file. If yours is the second type, here's what that configuration typically looks like.

With a custom header (Option 1):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "doran-back-in-stock": {
      "url": "https://prod.bp-mcp.s.doran.app/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "bp_live_abc123"
      }
    }
  }
}

With the API Key embedded in the URL (Option 2):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "doran-back-in-stock": {
      "url": "https://prod.bp-mcp.s.doran.app/mcp/bp_live_abc123"
    }
  }
}

Replace bp_live_abc123 with your own API Key. The field names (mcpServers, url, headers) can vary slightly between AI apps — use this as a reference for the shape of the configuration, not as an exact template.

Step 3: Connect your AI app

The steps below are written in a general way so they apply to most AI apps that support connecting to a "remote MCP server" over HTTP. The exact menu names can vary between AI apps (for example: "Connectors", "MCP Servers", "Integrations", "Tools"...), but the overall flow is the same.

Open the MCP connection settings in your AI app

Go to the settings of the AI app you're using, and find the option to add a new MCP server or add a new connector.

Name it and enter the connection address

Give it a recognizable name, for example "Doran Back in Stock", so you can easily tell it apart if you connect to multiple MCP servers. Enter the address and API Key using one of the two options from Step 2, depending on which one your AI app supports.

Save it and approve tool permissions

Save the connection. The first time the AI uses one of the Doran Back in Stock tools, your AI app will usually ask whether you want to allow it — you can choose an "always allow" option, since every tool here is read-only and carries no risk of changing anything in your store.

Step 4: Try asking your AI assistant

Once connected, try asking your AI assistant questions like these:

About back-in-stock requests

"Who signed up to be notified about the product with ID 1234567890?"
"Show me all requests from jane@example.com."
"How many requests are still waiting to be sent?"

About demand

"Which variants have more than 10 customers still waiting?"
"What's the demand for my best-selling product's variants?"

About analytics

"How many back-in-stock emails did I send in the last 30 days, and how many were opened or clicked?"
"How much revenue came from back-in-stock emails this month?"
"What are my top 5 products by back-in-stock revenue last month?"

Your AI assistant automatically picks the right tool based on your question — you don't need to know any technical tool names, just ask in plain language.

Available tools

For reference, these are the tools your AI assistant can use:

Tool	What it does
`list_back_in_stock_notifications`	Lists back-in-stock requests, filtered by product, variant, email, phone, or status.
`list_demand_products`	Lists variants with the number of customers waiting vs. already notified.
`get_back_in_stock_overview_statistic`	Email totals (sent, opened, clicked) and attributed revenue for a date range.
`get_top_revenued_products`	Top 5 products by back-in-stock revenue for a date range (shown by Shopify product ID).

Security & important notes

Read-only: every Back in Stock MCP tool only reads data — none of them can create, edit, or delete anything in your store.
The API Key is shown only once: if you lose it or didn't copy it in time, click Regenerate to create a new one — the old key stops working as soon as the new key is created.
Turn it off anytime: turning off the Enable MCP toggle immediately disables the API Key, even though it still appears (masked) on the settings page.
Downgrading your plan also disables it: if your store moves to a plan that doesn't support MCP (Free or Early Business plans), the API Key stops working until you upgrade back to Business or above.
Each API Key is tied to one store: your AI assistant will only ever see data of the store that generated the API Key.
Customer data: requests include customer names, emails, and phone numbers. Only connect AI apps you trust with this information.