Manage your IIITH mess by chatting

Connect your dining account to Claude, ChatGPT or another app that supports connectors. Then just ask it to check menus, change your mess, cancel meals or show your bill.

Watch the video guide Opens YouTube.

1. Get a dining key

  1. Open dining.iiit.ac.in and go to Settings → Auth Keys.
  2. Press Create. Make a new key just for this, so you can delete it later without affecting anything else.
  3. Keep it handy. Your app will send you to a sign-in page on this server where you paste it once.

Treat the key like a password: anyone with it can register, cancel and change meals on your account. Paste it only on the sign-in page your app opens, never into the chat.

2. Add the connector to your app

Every app asks for this address.

https://iiith-mess-mcp.tech/mcp

Claude (claude.ai and the desktop app)
  1. Open Settings → Connectors.
  2. Choose Add custom connector. Name it "IIITH Mess" and paste the address above.
  3. Click Add, then Connect.
  4. A sign-in page from this server opens. Paste your dining key and press Connect.
  5. Start a new chat and ask about your meals.

It also works in the Claude mobile app. If you can't find Add custom connector on your phone, add it from a computer first.

ChatGPT
  1. On the ChatGPT website, open Settings → Apps (called Connectors in some versions) → Advanced settings, and turn on Developer mode.
  2. Go back and choose Create. Name it "IIITH Mess", paste the address above, and if it asks for authentication choose OAuth. Tick the box saying you trust this app, then create it.
  3. A sign-in page from this server opens. Paste your dining key and press Connect.
  4. In a new chat, use the + button under the message box to turn on IIITH Mess.

ChatGPT changes these menus often, and custom connectors need a plan that includes developer mode, so names may differ. OpenAI's help pages have the current steps.

Claude Code
  1. Run this in a terminal: 
    claude mcp add --transport http mess https://iiith-mess-mcp.tech/mcp -s user
  2. Start Claude Code, type /mcp and pick mess.
  3. Choose to sign in. A page from this server opens in your browser: paste your dining key and press Connect.
Cursor, VS Code and other apps

Add a remote MCP server (sometimes called HTTP or Streamable HTTP) with the address above. It needs no other settings. When the app asks you to sign in or authorise, paste your dining key on the page that opens.

For Cursor, put this in ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "mess": { "url": "https://iiith-mess-mcp.tech/mcp" } } }

For VS Code, put this in .vscode/mcp.json:

{ "servers": { "mess": { "type": "http", "url": "https://iiith-mess-mcp.tech/mcp" } } }

What happens to your key

You paste it once, on a page served by this server. The server stores it encrypted and uses it only to talk to the mess portal for you. It doesn't save what you ask or what the portal answers.

Whoever runs the server could technically read the stored key, so use a key made just for this and delete it when you're done. Read the privacy details.

Your app can register and cancel meals for you. Registrations are added to your bill and cancellations count toward your monthly limit, so read what it plans to do before you say yes.

Disconnecting

  1. Remove the connector in your app's connector settings.
  2. Delete the key on dining.iiit.ac.in under Settings → Auth Keys. The key stops working everywhere straight away, including the copy stored on this server.

The server deletes its own copy when your app tells it you disconnected (not every app does), the next time anything uses the key after the portal has stopped accepting it, or automatically about 60 days after your app last connected. More on deleting your data.