AhaSlides MCP — Getting Started Guide

Once AhaSlides is connected, your AI assistant can create and edit slides, set time limits and points, apply a theme to your presentation, and even build a PowerPoint file with live AhaSlides slides inside it. Model Context Protocol is an open standard that connects AI assistants to external tools and services. Instead of switching between apps, you describe what you need and the AI does the work inside AhaSlides for you. Think of it like giving Claude a seat at your AhaSlides account.

Before you start

You’ll need:

An AhaSlides account (free or paid)
An AI assistant that supports custom MCP connectors — Claude, ChatGPT, or Claude Code

No API key needed — you’ll sign in with your AhaSlides account when you connect for the first time. The server URL is the same everywhere:

https://mcp.ahaslides.com/mcp

The AI & automation section of the AhaSlides Marketplace, with the MCP Server card highlighted

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude (no code)

This is the easiest way for most people — a few clicks, no terminal.

Open your connector settings

Click your profile, then go to Settings → Connectors.

Add a custom connector

Click Add custom connector, paste https://mcp.ahaslides.com/mcp into the Remote server URL field, then click Add.

The first time you use an AhaSlides tool, Claude opens a browser window for you to sign in with your AhaSlides account (email/password, Google, or Microsoft). After signing in, you’re all set.

Adding connectors in Claude requires a paid Claude plan.

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to ChatGPT (no code)

ChatGPT can use AhaSlides too, and this doesn’t require a paid ChatGPT account.

Turn on Developer mode

Click your profile, then go to Settings → Security and login and turn on Developer mode — this lets you add custom connections.

Browse plugins

Open the Plugins tab and choose Browse plugin.

Add the connection

Click the plus (+) icon, paste https://mcp.ahaslides.com/mcp into the Connection field, then click Create.

The first time you use an AhaSlides tool, you’ll be asked to sign in with your AhaSlides account. After signing in, you’re all set.

The Build AhaSlides decks right inside ChatGPT card in the AhaSlides dashboard sidebar, with a link to the setup guide

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude Code (for developers)

If you use Claude Code (CLI, desktop app, or VS Code / JetBrains extension), you can add the server directly.

Option 1: Quick add via CLI

Run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add ahaslides --transport http https://mcp.ahaslides.com/mcp

Option 2: Manual Configuration

Add the following to your Claude Code MCP settings (settings.json or .mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ahaslides": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://mcp.ahaslides.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Signing in to Claude Code

The first time you use an AhaSlides tool, Claude Code will open a browser window for you to sign in with your AhaSlides account (email/password, Google, or Microsoft). After signing in, you’re all set.

What you can do with AhaSlides MCP

Once connected, just describe what you need. Here’s everything the MCP server supports: Presentations

Create a new presentation
View full presentation details (slides, theme, structure)

Slides

Create slides of 17+ types — quizzes, polls, word clouds, brainstorms, content slides, and more
Edit slide content (titles, options, answers, paragraphs, images)
Configure slide properties (timers, scoring, display settings, chart types)
Reorder slides within a presentation
Delete slides
Skip slides during a live presentation (hide from audience without removing)

Themes

Browse all available themes (official, custom, and team-shared)
Apply a theme to any presentation

Analytics

Query audience response data across all your presentations
Analyse a specific presentation’s session data (participation, quiz scores, poll results)

Recipes

Use built-in recipes and save your own — see Built-in recipes and your own

PowerPoint files

Build a PowerPoint (.pptx) deck with live AhaSlides quizzes, polls and other interactive slides built in — see Create a PowerPoint deck with live AhaSlides slides

Create a PowerPoint deck with live AhaSlides slides

Ask your AI assistant for a PowerPoint presentation with interactive slides, and it hands you one .pptx file with live AhaSlides quizzes, polls, word clouds and other interactive slides built in. When you present it in PowerPoint, those slides run live: your audience joins on their phones and responds, just as they would in AhaSlides. Behind the scenes, the assistant creates the interactive slides in a new presentation in your AhaSlides account, builds the PowerPoint deck, and places each interactive slide in it through the AhaSlides PowerPoint add-in.

What you need

AhaSlides MCP connected to your AI assistant. See the setup steps for Claude, ChatGPT or Claude Code on this page.
An AI assistant that can create files and run code, such as Claude or Claude Code. Building the .pptx file happens on the assistant’s side.
The PowerPoint desktop app for Windows or Mac with the AhaSlides add-in installed. See Set up the add-in.

Example prompts

“Create a PowerPoint presentation with interactive quizzes about our new product range.”
“Make me a .pptx deck for Monday’s team meeting with a live poll and a word cloud.”
“Build a PowerPoint for my workshop with a few audience participation questions between the topics.”

Where the slides run live

The interactive slides run live only in the PowerPoint desktop app with the AhaSlides add-in. Everywhere else — PowerPoint for the web, a PDF export or printout, or a computer without the add-in — each one shows a placeholder image instead of a blank slide.

If you send the file to someone else to present, they need the AhaSlides add-in installed in their own copy of PowerPoint for the slides to run live.

Because the interactive slides are saved as a presentation in your AhaSlides account, you can edit them there as usual. To pull your changes into PowerPoint, use Reload in the add-in. See Reloading slides.

Built-in recipes and your own

A recipe is a saved set of instructions that tells your AI assistant how to build a certain kind of presentation, survey or course. AhaSlides comes with built-in recipes, and you can save your own. To see them, ask your assistant: “What AhaSlides recipes do you have?” Then name the one you want in your request, for example “Using the Classroom lesson recipe, build a lesson on…”

Recipe	Use it for
Classroom lesson	A school lesson with a starter, direct teaching, checks for understanding and an exit ticket
Quiz game	A live competitive quiz with scores and a leaderboard
Secondary school course	A course for students aged about 11 to 18, with short lessons and frequent low-stakes checks
Bloom’s taxonomy course	A course whose lessons climb from remembering facts to applying and evaluating them

The list also includes recipes for icebreakers, training workshops, town hall Q&As, retrospectives, surveys and workplace courses. For classroom prompts you can copy, see AhaSlides MCP for teachers.

Save your own recipe

Describe how you want your presentations built, then ask your assistant to save it: “Save this as an AhaSlides recipe called ‘My quiz style’: four answer options, wrong answers based on common mistakes, 20 seconds per question, and a leaderboard after every five questions.” Next time, ask for it by name. Keep these in mind:

You can save up to 50 recipes of your own.
A recipe title can be up to 80 characters and the instructions up to 4,000.
Built-in recipes can’t be edited. To change one, ask your assistant to save a copy as your own recipe and edit that.
You can ask your assistant to update or delete a recipe you saved.

Supported slide types

Category	Slide Types
Quiz	Pick Answer, Short Answer, Match Pairs, Correct Order, Categorise
Interactive	Poll, Word Cloud, Brainstorm, Open Ended, Scale, Q&A, Spinner Wheel
Content	Presentation Title, Content, Listing, Content with Image (left or right)
Utility	QR Code, Leaderboard

Example MCP prompts

Here are example prompts to get started:

Task	Prompt
Create a Presentation	”Create a new AhaSlides presentation called ‘Q2 Team Update’ with a welcome slide and an agenda.”
Add a Poll or Quiz	”Add a multiple choice question to my presentation asking ‘What’s your biggest challenge at work?’ with four options.”
Build a Quiz	”Create a 5-question trivia quiz about our product features for a team training session.”
Add a Word Cloud	”Add a Word Cloud slide asking participants ‘What does great collaboration look like to you?’”
Edit Existing Slides	”Update the title of slide 3 in my presentation to ‘Quarterly Highlights’.”
Rearrange Slides	”Move the leaderboard slide to right after the last quiz question.”
Change the Look	”Show me all available themes, then apply a dark one to my presentation.”
Analyse Audience Responses	”How many people participated in my ‘Sales Kickoff 2025’ presentation? Show me the quiz scores breakdown.”
Skip a Slide	”Skip the Brainstorm slide during the live session — I want to keep it but not show it today.”
Plan a Lesson	”Create a 45-minute lesson for Year 8 on the water cycle with a quiz after each part and a three-question exit ticket.”
Build a PowerPoint Deck	”Create a PowerPoint presentation with interactive quizzes and a live poll for my sales training.”

Tips for best results with MCP

Be specific about what you want:

Instead of “Make a quiz”, try “Make a 10-question multiple choice quiz on workplace safety for new hires, with 4 answer options each”

Reference presentations by name:

“Add a poll to my presentation called ‘Sales Kickoff 2025’”

Ask for structure first, then refine:

“Create an outline for a 15-minute product training session, then build it in AhaSlides”

Combine with other tools:

“Read my meeting agenda from Google Docs, then create an AhaSlides presentation from it”

Use analytics to improve:

“Show me which quiz questions had the lowest correct answer rate in my last training session”

Troubleshooting AhaSlides MCP

Issue	Fix
Sign-in popup doesn’t appear	Restart Claude Code and try again
”Not authenticated” error	Your session may have expired — Claude Code will prompt you to sign in again
A “Connect your app” page asks me to connect	An app you are using has asked to connect to your AhaSlides account. Check that the code matches the one shown in that app, then select Connect. Codes expire, so if the page says the code is invalid or has expired, start the sign-in again from the app. If you didn’t just start signing in, close the tab.
Tools not appearing	Restart Claude Code after adding the server
”Presentation not found”	Make sure you are referencing the correct presentation name or ID
Slow responses	Normal for large presentations with many slides — wait a moment

MCP security and privacy

No API keys to manage — authentication uses secure OAuth 2.0 (the same standard used by Google, GitHub, etc.)
You sign in with your existing AhaSlides account — no extra credentials to create or store
The AI can only access presentations in your account
The MCP server only performs actions you explicitly request
You can revoke access anytime from your AhaSlides Account Settings
Your sign-in session will expire automatically — you’ll be prompted to re-authenticate when needed

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find my API key?

AhaSlides doesn’t have a public REST API, so there’s no API key to look up. If you want an AI assistant like Claude to work with your AhaSlides account, use AhaSlides MCP instead — it connects via your existing AhaSlides account sign-in, no API key needed. See the Setup section above to add it to Claude Code.

Have a question? Contact our support team — if you’re logged in, use the chat bubble in the bottom-right of your dashboard; otherwise contact us here or email hi@ahaslides.com. Want to connect with other users? Join the AhaSlides community to share tips, request features, and see how others engage their audiences.

Getting started

Using slide types

Features and functions

AI-powered features

Presenting

After the presentation

Branding

Integrations

Account, plans and billing

Compare

AhaSlides MCP — Getting Started Guide

Before you start

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude (no code)

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to ChatGPT (no code)

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude Code (for developers)

Option 1: Quick add via CLI

Option 2: Manual Configuration

Signing in to Claude Code

What you can do with AhaSlides MCP

Create a PowerPoint deck with live AhaSlides slides

What you need

Example prompts

Where the slides run live

Built-in recipes and your own

Save your own recipe

Supported slide types

Example MCP prompts

Tips for best results with MCP

Troubleshooting AhaSlides MCP

MCP security and privacy

Frequently asked questions

​Before you start

​Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude (no code)

​Setup: Adding AhaSlides to ChatGPT (no code)

​Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude Code (for developers)

​Option 1: Quick add via CLI

​Option 2: Manual Configuration

​Signing in to Claude Code

​What you can do with AhaSlides MCP

​Create a PowerPoint deck with live AhaSlides slides

​What you need

​Example prompts

​Where the slides run live

​Built-in recipes and your own

​Save your own recipe

​Supported slide types

​Example MCP prompts

​Tips for best results with MCP

​Troubleshooting AhaSlides MCP

​MCP security and privacy

​Frequently asked questions

Before you start

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude (no code)

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to ChatGPT (no code)

Setup: Adding AhaSlides to Claude Code (for developers)

Option 1: Quick add via CLI

Option 2: Manual Configuration

Signing in to Claude Code

What you can do with AhaSlides MCP

Create a PowerPoint deck with live AhaSlides slides

What you need

Example prompts

Where the slides run live

Built-in recipes and your own

Save your own recipe

Supported slide types

Example MCP prompts

Tips for best results with MCP

Troubleshooting AhaSlides MCP

MCP security and privacy

Frequently asked questions