Can Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor use Contact Book directly?

Yes, via the MCP server. It's a stdio JSON-RPC server that wires into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-aware client in five lines of config. The list of tools matches your data model 1:1 - whatever a CRUD type exposes in the UI is exposed identically to the agent.

Do agent calls share the same auth + access controls?

Yes. The MCP server authenticates with the same JWT or PAT a human session uses. Sharing rules, org membership, rate limits, suspicion bans - all of it applies. There's no "agent backdoor" that bypasses the access matrix.

Is there an audit trail for agent actions?

Yes. Every mutation goes through the same audit-log path as a UI click. The transport (UI / API / CLI / MCP) is recorded as channel metadata so you can filter "what did the agent do this hour" from your account history.

Can I rate-limit an agent separately from a human?

Per-token rate limits apply, so you can issue an agent its own PAT and cap it independently. The shared user-level bucket also caps total throughput, so a runaway loop can't drain your whole account. The CLI's auto-update channel marker means you can also see in audit which version is calling.

Does the MCP / API surface cost extra?

No. Same plan, same surface. We don't paywall the agent - it's the same product, the same schema, the same access gates. If a plan can do X in the UI, it can do X via MCP.

Contact Book

Compare

Contact Book: the agent-friendly alternative to Garden

Same product, same surface for humans and AI agents. MCP server + CLI + drop-in clients in 15 languages.

Agentic alternative

Personal CRM

Networking

Privacy

Finn GlasCo-Founder + Engineering

·February 6, 2026·

3 min read

Contact Book ships an MCP server you can wire into Claude Desktop or any MCP client in five lines. The same auth + access gates apply, the same audit log records every action, the same rate limits apply. Garden doesn't currently expose this surface - that's the gap.

At a glance

Garden's appeal is that it can build a picture of your network from the channels you connect - mail, calendar, social - and surface who you're drifting from. Contact Book deliberately does none of that: we never read your email, calendar, or social accounts. You log what you choose, and nothing else is observed. Pick Garden if auto-surfacing your network from your accounts is the value you want; pick us if "the tool reads my channels" is exactly the line you don't want crossed, and you'd rather keep a deliberate, private record hosted in Germany.

Agent surface

What 'agent-friendly' actually means in practice

Contact Book ships an MCP server, a CLI, and drop-in clients in 15 languages. They're auto-generated from the same schema your UI uses; the auth, the access gates, the rate limits, the audit log all apply identically whether you're clicking buttons or calling the API. Garden doesn't currently expose this surface, which is the gap a serious agent integration trips over - the agent ends up scraping the UI through a browser, which is fragile, slow, and silently bypasses everything below.

Contact Book vs Garden: agent-readiness comparison

	Ours Contact Book	Theirs Garden
Auto-suggests who to reach out to
Reads your mail / social to build the graph
Per-person cadence you set
Conversation log
Life events + gifts		Limited
Family / relationship graph		Network-style
Hosted in Germany
Works without connecting accounts		Core needs sync

When to pick which

Pick Contact Book when

You don't want any tool reading your email, calendar, or social accounts.

You'd rather decide who matters yourself than have a graph inferred for you.

Hosting in Germany and a no-sync, no-tracking posture matter to you.

Pick Garden when

You genuinely want the tool to surface your network automatically from your accounts.

Connecting mail and social to get suggestions is a trade you're happy to make.

Agentic-integration questions

What an agent-builder asks before wiring a tool into Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor.

Start with Contact Book

Free plan, no credit card. We host in Germany. Export + delete are self-serve.

Written by

Finn Glas

Co-Founder + Engineering

Finn is one of the Co-Founders. He owns the engineering side, the infrastructure, and most of the late-night fixes that ship before anyone notices.

finn.glas at aicuflow dot comLinkedIn Website