Monitor API Status from Claude Desktop with MCP

The future of infrastructure monitoring isn't dashboards—it's conversation. Today, we're launching MCP server support for API Status Check, letting AI assistants like Claude Desktop query real-time API health data directly.

Ask Claude "Is GitHub down?" and get instant, accurate status data. No browser. No dashboard. Just natural language.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Anthropic's open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data sources. Think of it as a universal plugin system for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other AI coding tools.

Instead of switching to a browser to check if Stripe is having an outage, you can ask your AI assistant—and it queries the API Status Check MCP server in real-time to give you an answer.

MCP bridges the gap between AI agents and the real world. And for DevOps teams, that means AI assistants can now help monitor, diagnose, and respond to incidents.

Why AI-Native API Monitoring?

Traditional monitoring tools are built for humans staring at dashboards. But the future is AI agents that:

• Proactively monitor infrastructure and alert you in natural language
• Diagnose incidents by cross-referencing multiple APIs and dependencies
• Answer questions like "Are my payment APIs healthy?" without you needing to check 5 different status pages
• Automate responses by triggering runbooks when critical services go down

API Status Check's MCP server makes this possible. Now your AI assistant has direct access to real-time status data for 100+ critical APIs—from AWS and Cloudflare to Stripe, GitHub, and OpenAI.

Getting Started

1. Install the MCP Server

First, install the API Status Check MCP server from npm:

npm install -g @apistatuscheck/mcp-server

2. Configure Claude Desktop

Add the MCP server to your Claude Desktop config file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apistatuscheck": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apistatuscheck/mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Close and reopen Claude Desktop. The MCP server will automatically connect.

4. Query Your First API Status

In Claude Desktop, try:

"Is GitHub down?"

Claude will use the MCP server to check GitHub's status in real-time and give you an instant answer.

Available Tools

The API Status Check MCP server provides 5 tools for querying API health data:

1. check_status — Check if a Specific API is Down

Ask Claude: "Is Stripe down?"

Claude calls check_status and returns:

• Current status (operational, degraded, or down)
• Last checked timestamp
• Incident details (if any)
• Link to the full status page

Example:

Stripe is operational. Last checked 2 minutes ago. No active incidents.

2. list_apis — See All Monitored APIs

Ask Claude: "What APIs do you monitor?"

Claude calls list_apis and shows you the full catalog of 100+ services we track, organized by category:

• Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Cloudflare)
• Developer Tools (GitHub, Vercel, Netlify)
• Payment Processors (Stripe, PayPal, Square)
• AI Services (OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face)
• And many more...

3. list_categories — Browse by Category

Ask Claude: "What categories of APIs do you track?"

Returns a list of all available categories:

• Cloud Infrastructure
• AI & Machine Learning
• Payment Processing
• Developer Tools
• Communication & Messaging
• Database Services
• Content Delivery
• Authentication & Security

4. check_category — Check All APIs in a Category

Ask Claude: "How are all AI services doing?"

Claude calls check_category("ai") and returns status for:

• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• Hugging Face
• Replicate
• Stability AI
• And more...

Perfect for checking if an entire category of dependencies is healthy.

5. check_url — Check Any Custom Endpoint

Ask Claude: "Is my-api.com responding?"

Claude calls check_url("https://my-api.com") and performs a real-time health check:

• HTTP status code
• Response time
• Whether the endpoint is reachable

Great for custom APIs or internal services not in our catalog.

Real-World Use Cases

1. DevOps Chatbots

Build Slack or Discord bots that query API status on demand:

"Hey bot, is AWS having issues?"
"All AWS services operational. Last checked 1 minute ago."

2. AI-Powered Incident Response

When your monitoring alerts fire, ask Claude:

"Check all payment APIs—are Stripe, PayPal, and Square healthy?"

Claude cross-references multiple services instantly.

3. Automated Health Checks

Use Claude Desktop as a command center during deployments:

"Before we deploy, check GitHub, Vercel, and Cloudflare status."

4. Dependency Monitoring

AI coding tools like Cursor can now proactively warn you:

"Warning: OpenAI API is experiencing elevated error rates. Consider adding retry logic."

How We Compare

API Status Check is one of the first API monitoring tools with native MCP support. While competitors offer browser-based dashboards or webhook integrations, we're building for the AI-native future.

Why it matters:

• No context switching — stay in your AI coding environment
• Natural language queries — no need to memorize API endpoints or syntax
• Real-time data — we check APIs every 60 seconds
• 100+ services — from Stripe and AWS to GitHub and OpenAI
• Open standard — MCP works across Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible tool

Getting Involved

Try it yourself:

1. Install the MCP server: npm install -g @apistatuscheck/mcp-server
2. Configure Claude Desktop (see above)
3. Start asking Claude about API status

Learn more:

• Full MCP documentation
• GitHub repository
• Browse all monitored APIs

Have feedback? We're iterating fast. If there's an API you want us to add or a feature you'd like to see, let us know.

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