HRIS
Gusto MCP connector
The Gusto connector lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any MCP client look up employees, contractors, departments, and benefits in Gusto through one governed Elaichi endpoint, with every request running as the signed-in person and recorded in an audit log.
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How it connects. Connects over OAuth. The credential goes into a vault nobody reads back.
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One address. https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp, the same for every user.
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Their own access. An agent never gets more than the person it acts for.
How to connect
How to connect Gusto to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
Two steps, about a minute.
In Elaichi
Connect Gusto once
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Open Connections, choose Add connection, and pick Gusto.
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Optionally set Share with to give a team access, then press Connect.
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Approve it in Gusto. Gusto's own window opens. Whoever approves it decides what this connection can reach.
The credential is vaulted. Nobody reads it back, not even the AI.
Add connection
Choose a connector.
In your AI client
Point it at one endpoint
Everyone in the organization uses the same address, and each person only ever reaches what their own account allows.
Connect Gusto to Claude
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1
Open Customize, then Connectors.
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2
Press Add.
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3
Name it, paste the MCP server URL, then Continue.
https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp -
4
Sign in and approve.
On Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds it once. Everyone else turns it on for themselves.
Connect Gusto to ChatGPT
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1
Open Plugins, then press the + button.
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2
Name it and paste the endpoint into Server URL.
https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp -
3
Leave Authentication on OAuth, then tick the risk acknowledgement.
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4
Press Create, then sign in and approve.
Works on the web today. The plugin directory lives at chatgpt.com/plugins.
Connect Gusto to Cursor
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1
Open
~/.cursor/mcp.json. -
2
Add the endpoint under
mcpServers.https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp -
3
Reload Cursor, then sign in and approve.
~/.cursor/mcp.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"elaichi": {
"url": "https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp"
}
}
}
Set up per machine, so repeat it on each computer you work from.
Connect Gusto to any MCP client
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1
Add the endpoint as a remote MCP server.
https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp -
2
Sign in and approve.
{
"mcpServers": {
"elaichi": {
"url": "https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp"
}
}
}
The Elaichi Agent already has these tools, with nothing to set up.
Use cases
What teams do with Gusto through Elaichi
Every one of these runs inside the access the person already has, and lands in the same audit log.
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People ops
Answer employee questions without opening Gusto
Ask which department someone sits in, what their work address is, or what a custom field says, and get the answer from the live Gusto record in your chat window.
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Benefits
Enroll a new hire in company benefits
Pull up the company benefit plans in Gusto, add the new employee to the right ones, and adjust an enrollment later when their situation changes.
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Finance
Reconcile contractors against what was paid
List every active contractor in Gusto and compare them to your vendor records before month end, so nobody gets paid twice or missed.
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IT
Build the offboarding list from terminations
Ask for everyone whose termination is recorded in Gusto this week and hand the list straight to the people who revoke laptops and accounts.
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Managers
See who reports where across departments
Get a headcount by department from Gusto, or a list of everyone in one team, before a planning meeting or a reorg conversation.
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Operations
Plan offices around real work addresses
Pull employee work and home addresses from Gusto to see how many people sit in each location and who is remote before choosing a new office or a team offsite.
Try asking
- “List employees in the Engineering department with their job titles.”
- “Which contractors were added to Gusto this quarter?”
- “Show company benefits and how many employees are enrolled.”
AI tools
Gusto tools for your AI agents
22 tools are ready to call through Elaichi's MCP endpoint the moment you connect Gusto, governed by the same roles, restrictions, and audit log as everything else in Elaichi.
No tools match your search.
See it in Elaichi
What connecting Gusto gets you
6 screens from the product, each doing one job for your Gusto account.
The agent
Ask about employees, get real answers.
Plain language questions run against live Gusto employees, departments and benefits.
- employees
- contractors
- departments
- benefits
Ask Elaichi to work across your apps.
List employees in the Engineering department with their job titles.
Which contractors were added to Gusto this quarter?
Show company benefits and how many employees are enrolled.
Also runs in Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
MCP clients
Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor reach Gusto.
One org MCP endpoint over OAuth, no SDK and no shared API key.
Copy the endpoint
Tool catalog
22 Gusto tools ready on connect.
Employees, contractors, departments, benefits and terminations covered without writing custom code.
- List all Gusto me
- Get single Gusto company by ID
- List all Gusto company custom fields
- List all Gusto departments
Toolboxes
Every team gets its own toolbox.
Curate separate Gusto toolboxes for People Ops, Finance, IT and Legal.
- People Ops
- Finance
- Benefits
- IT
Shared connections
Teammates use Gusto without seeing credentials.
See who connected each Gusto account and which teams and members share it.
- People Ops
- Finance
- Benefits
- IT Onboarding
Audit log
Answer who read which employee record.
Every Gusto call is logged with time, person, action, type and resource.
- When
- Who
- What happened
- Type
Launching soon
From answering questions to doing the work
A person no longer has to ask. A trigger starts the work, inside the same permissions and the same audit log as everything else. Automations and live dashboards are launching soon, on the Black plan.
Automations
A schedule drafts your headcount digest.
Gusto employees and terminations are fetched, grouped, drafted, approved by a person, posted back.
Gusto digest
Run 418 · started 2 minutes ago · on behalf of Emma Laurent
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✓
Schedule
Every weekday at 08:00
0.2s -
✓
Fetch employees
Gusto
1.4s -
✓
Group by owner
Transform
0.1s -
✓
Draft the digest
Agent step
Ran with 4 tools, returned a structured summary
6.2s -
Approve the digest
Needs approval
Assigned to Michael Brennan
Approve Deny -
Post the digest
Gusto
Queued
Collections and dashboards
Headcount numbers arrive before anyone asks.
Four metrics, 14 days of new employees and a department breakdown, refreshed on schedule.
Gusto health
Refreshed 4 minutes ago · every 15 minutes · from the employees collection
Employees
1,284 ↓ 12%
Contractors
96 ↓ 8%
Needs attention
3 ↑ 2
Updated this week
412 ↑ 9%
Employees created
Last 14 days
By team
Share of activity
People Ops 34%
Finance 27%
Benefits 21%
IT Onboarding 18%
Related connectors
More from the catalog
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do I connect Gusto to Claude?
First connect Gusto in Elaichi, which opens Gusto's own sign-in page where you authorize access as yourself, with no client ID or secret to generate. Then in Claude go to Customize, then Connectors, then Add, and paste https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp as the endpoint. Claude asks you to sign in to Elaichi once, and Gusto is available in your conversations from then on.
Does Gusto work with ChatGPT and Cursor as well as Claude?
Yes. Once Gusto is connected in Elaichi, the same endpoint, https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp, works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, any other MCP client, and the Elaichi Agent. You connect Gusto once and use it from whichever client you happen to be in.
What can an AI agent actually do with my Gusto data?
With Gusto connected, an agent can look up employees and contractors, find their departments, home and work addresses, and custom fields, and pull the list of recorded terminations. It can read the company's benefit plans and each employee's enrollments, and it can enroll an employee in a benefit or update an existing enrollment. It cannot run payroll or create new employees through this connector.
Does connecting Gusto give the AI access to everyone's records?
No. Every request to Gusto runs inside the access of the person who signed in, so an agent sees exactly what that person could see in Gusto and nothing more. Elaichi can narrow that further with per-action restrictions, but it can never widen access beyond what Gusto already grants that person.
Can I stop an agent from deleting or changing things in Gusto?
Yes. Restrictions in Elaichi apply per action, so you can allow reading employees and benefits from Gusto while blocking benefit enrollments or changes to notification subscriptions. A blocked action is never shown to Claude, ChatGPT, or any other client, so no prompt, however worded, can reach it.
What happens to a Gusto connection when someone leaves?
Offboarding a person in Elaichi ends their access to Gusto through every connected client at once. If they had shared a Gusto connection with a team, it keeps working for everyone else. Disconnecting Gusto once in Elaichi removes it from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and every other client at the same time.
Put Gusto in front of your team
Fourteen days on Gold, no credit card. Connect it once and pick what each team can call.