Using the API
Updated 2026-09-02
A personal access token lets a script, or an AI assistant, act on your rifts.to account without opening the browser. This article orients you between the two ways to use it; the full reference lives at /api and /mcp.
Personal access tokens
An access token authenticates requests to /api/v1 as you. With one, you can create, theme, edit, and relaunch surveys, and launch a saved template, all without the browser builder. Using the API requires an active subscription; a token with no subscription behind it is refused.
What it does not do
A survey you create through the API does not overwrite the palette you last picked by hand in the browser. If you do not name a color when creating a survey, it takes your account's remembered default, the same as a one-click template launch does; it never writes a new default back. Acting on your behalf through a token is not the same as you sitting down and choosing a theme yourself, so it does not change what the browser builder opens on next time.
Connecting an AI assistant
The other way in is an MCP server, which lets an assistant like Claude create and read your surveys through a normal conversation instead of you writing requests by hand. It is a separate project from rifts.to itself, published to npm as @rifts_to/mcp. That package name uses an underscore, not a dot: npm package names cannot contain a dot, so rifts.to becomes rifts_to for the purposes of the scope. There is no package published under any other spelling, and a package named without the underscore does not exist.
Full setup steps, including the exact install command, live at /mcp. Connecting an assistant this way still uses the same account and the same subscription requirement as a plain access token; it is a different door into the same account, not a separate product.
Authorizing a connection
The first time an MCP client or another third-party app tries to connect, you will see a consent screen asking you to approve what it can do. Approving it does not hand over your password or your admin tokens; it grants the connecting app its own access, which you can revoke from your account at any time without affecting your sign-in.
Where to go next
For endpoint-by-endpoint request and response details, error codes, and rate limits, see /api. For the MCP tool list and connection steps, see /mcp.