Claude Code + MCP + HighLevel: Birthday Emails

You Have Heard "MCP Server" Slung Around. Here Is What It Actually Does.

If you have been anywhere near the AI conversation lately, you have heard people talking about MCP servers. Maybe in a YouTube comment, maybe in a Skool group, maybe from that one guy in your mastermind who is always three steps ahead. And it sounds technical. It sounds like something for developers.

Here is a super simple example of what it actually looks like in practice -- Claude Code, an MCP server, and HighLevel working together.

Imagine you run a go-kart park and you throw birthday parties. Every party, about 15 kids show up, and every kid's parent has to sign a waiver. That waiver collects the basics -- name, email, phone -- and one extra field: **their kid's birthday**.

Now imagine you have thrown 10 birthday parties. That is 150 kids. 150 parents. 150 birthdays sitting in your HighLevel account. And here is the thing -- birthdays have built-in urgency. You do not need to manufacture scarcity. The date is real, it is coming, and mom needs a plan.

So you ask Claude a question.

"Whose Birthday Is Coming Up?"

That is it. Plain English. You type it into Claude Code and get back:

Ethan Torres, turning 6 on March 28th. Parent is Maria Torres.

No SQL query. No HighLevel report builder. No exporting CSVs and sorting in a spreadsheet. Just a question and an answer.

But here is where it gets interesting. Claude does not just pull the birthday. It pulls Ethan's full contact history. And in that history, it finds something useful -- Ethan attended Dylan's birthday party at the park the week before.

So you say: "Compose a follow-up email."

And Claude writes this:

Subject: Ethan's birthday is coming up!

Hi Maria,

We loved having Ethan at Dylan's birthday party last week! It looked like the kids had a blast on the track.

With Ethan's birthday coming up on March 28th, we'd love to help you throw him an awesome party at Go-Kart Park. Turning 6 is a big deal!

We have a few party time slots still open for late March. Want me to send over the details?

-- Go-Kart Park Team

Could you reverse-engineer that into a mail merge template? Sure, probably. But that is not how it started. Nobody sat down and designed a template with merge fields and conditional logic. You just asked a question, and Claude read the CRM data, noticed that Ethan was at Dylan's party last week, and wrote something that felt like it came from a person who actually remembers the kid. The template did not exist until Claude wrote it on the fly. That is the part that feels like magic -- and then if you wanted to, you could turn it into a reusable template after the fact.

## How This Works: MCP in Plain English

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It is an open standard that lets AI tools like Claude Code talk directly to external systems -- your CRM, your database, your calendar, whatever.

Think of it like this. Without MCP, Claude is super smart but blind. It can write emails, analyze data, and build automations, but it cannot see your business data. MCP gives it eyes.

With an MCP server connected to HighLevel, Claude can:

• Search contacts by name, email, phone, or tag
• Pull full contact details including custom fields, tags, and history
• Find upcoming birthdays sorted by nearest date
• See every custom field in your account

And you talk to it in plain English. No API documentation. No Postman. No code.

How to Set This Up

Step 1: Get Claude Code Running

If you do not have Claude Code installed yet, follow our step-by-step setup guide. It walks you through Terminal, Homebrew, Node.js, and getting Claude Code running on your Mac. Takes about 15 minutes.

Step 2: Create a HighLevel Private Integration

You need an API token so Claude can talk to your HighLevel account.

1. Log into HighLevel and go to Settings then Integrations
2. Click Private Integrations then Create New
3. Give it a name like "Claude Code MCP"
4. Under Scopes, enable these:
   • Contacts -- Read (so Claude can search and pull contact data)
   • Locations -- Read (so Claude can see your custom fields and tags)
   • Conversations -- Read and Write (if you want Claude to send messages later)
5. Click Create and copy the API Token -- you will need this next

Also grab your Location ID. You can find it in the URL bar when you are inside a sub-account -- it is the long string after /location/.

Step 3: Connect the MCP Server

MCP servers are configured in Claude Code's settings. You point Claude at a server, give it credentials, and it gains new abilities.

The server needs your:

• API Token from Step 2
• Location ID from your sub-account

Once connected, Claude gets new tools: search contacts, get contact details, list custom fields, find upcoming birthdays. You do not call these tools manually -- Claude figures out which one to use based on what you ask.

Step 4: Ask Questions

That is the whole point. Once it is connected, just talk to it:

• "Whose birthday is coming up in the next 30 days?"
• "Look up John Smith's contact info"
• "What custom fields do we have?"
• "Find everyone tagged VIP"
• "Pull the details for this contact and draft a follow-up email"

Claude reads the data, understands the context, and responds intelligently. The birthday email example above was not scripted -- that was Claude reading a contact record and making a connection that a template never could.

Why This Beats Traditional Automation

HighLevel workflows are great for triggers -- someone fills out a form, send them an email. That is automation 101.

But what about the stuff that needs judgment? A workflow cannot look at a contact and think, "Oh, this kid was at Dylan's party last week -- I should mention that." A workflow sends the same template to everyone. Claude writes something different for each person because it actually reads their data.

This is not replacing workflows. It is filling the gap between what workflows can do and what a human would do if they had unlimited time.

Want to try this yourself? Start your free HighLevel trial and connect it to Claude Code with an MCP server.

What Else Could You Do With This?

Once you have Claude connected to your CRM, the birthday email is just the beginning:

• Post-appointment follow-ups that reference what was discussed
• Re-engagement emails for contacts who have not visited in 90 days
• Upsell messages based on purchase history
• Event invitations targeted by location, tags, or custom fields
• Weekly summaries of new leads, upcoming appointments, and pipeline changes

Every one of these is a plain English request. No code. No workflow builder. Just describe what you want.

The Bigger Picture

This is a small example, but it shows something important about where things are headed. The data was already in HighLevel. The AI was already capable of writing great emails. MCP is the bridge between them.

The businesses that figure this out early -- connecting their existing data to AI that can actually use it -- are going to have a serious edge. Not because the tech is complicated. Because most people have not thought to connect the two yet.

Need help setting this up? Create a ticket at MyTechSupport.com and we will get you connected.

See Also

• Your First Day with Claude Code -- Install guide for getting started
• Claude Code -- Overview of what Claude Code can do
• The Deterministic Pattern -- How to split AI work into reliable scripts + Claude judgment
• Custom Fields vs Custom Values -- Understanding the data structure behind this