Connect a terminal assistant with a personal key

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Most people connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor by signing in with their browser: see the assistant page. This page is for the other route: a personal key that a terminal assistant sends with each request. It can read your numbers but cannot change anything, and it is included in the trial and paid plans at no extra cost.

We tested the key route with Claude Code on October 15, 2026. Codex and other terminal assistants may work the same way, but we have not tested them. Setting it up means typing a few lines in a terminal, the text window where you give your computer written commands. If that is new to you, email us and we will walk you through it.

What you can ask

How often do AI engines name my product, and which one names it least?
Which of my questions am I never named in?
Who do the engines cite instead of me, and on which engine? (For local businesses, the competitor list is not available through the assistant yet.)
What do the engines cite when they skip me?
Did anything change recently?
Show me one recent answer, in full, with its sources.

What it can and cannot do

It shows snapshots. Every figure is a count of dated answers, such as “named in 24 of 91 answers”. Each result starts with how old the newest answer is.
Bevizio’s tools give no score, no forecast and no advice on what to change. Bevizio measures. If your assistant offers its own guess, it should say so, and you should treat it as the assistant’s opinion, not Bevizio’s.
It cannot change anything. It cannot add or remove questions, change settings or touch billing. Use the dashboard for that.
What “named” counts: your product name, or another spelling you added in Settings (an alias), appears in the answer text, or your own site is cited as a source. You can ask your assistant, “How was I named: in the text, or only by my site being cited?” (Local businesses are judged by their own rules, and this split is not shown for them.)

What your assistant can read, and who gets it

It can read what Bevizio has stored for your one product. That is the product name and website, your questions, and how often each engine named you. It also covers which companies and pages the answers cited, recent answers in full (which can include other businesses’ names), the searches an engine ran, changes we detected, and your plan and trial status. It cannot read your email address, your billing details or any other customer’s data.

Whatever your assistant reads, and whatever you ask it, goes to the company that makes the assistant, under your own agreement with them. Bevizio never sends your results to an assistant. See the privacy policy.

Connect it

Create a key. In Bevizio, open Settings, find Assistant connection, give the key a name and click Create key. Copy it right away: it is shown once.
Paste it only into your own computer’s settings. Never paste it into a chat, an email or a document. If you do, revoke it in Settings and make a new one.
Keep the key in a setting called BEVIZIO_KEY. That is a setting your computer holds for programs, so the key stays out of your project files. Programs you start, including your coding assistant, can read it. On Mac or Linux, open the Terminal app and type this, replacing PASTE-YOUR-KEY-HERE with your key. Keep the quote marks:
```
export BEVIZIO_KEY="PASTE-YOUR-KEY-HERE"
```
On Mac, this lasts only until you close that terminal window, so start your assistant from the same window. On Windows, open PowerShell and type this, again keeping the quote marks. It is saved for good, but only terminals opened afterwards see it, so close the window and open a new one:
```
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("BEVIZIO_KEY", "PASTE-YOUR-KEY-HERE", "User")
```
A terminal may keep what you type in its history. To avoid that on Windows, set BEVIZIO_KEY in your system settings instead (search for “environment variables”). Assistants started from an icon rather than a terminal, need to be fully closed and reopened before they see a new setting. The Settings page’s “Copy setup” button copies the same file text as in step 3 below, with no key inside.
Add Bevizio to Claude Code. The address is https://www.bevizio.com/api/mcp. Your assistant sends your key along with each request, as a line labeled Authorization, so Bevizio knows it is you. Here is how to set it up in Claude Code.
Claude Code TESTED BY US
Open the folder you start Claude Code in (your project folder). Create a plain-text file there named exactly .mcp.json, starting with the dot. Windows Notepad may add .txt to the end, so in the Save window choose “All files” as the type. Put this inside:
```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bevizio": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://www.bevizio.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${BEVIZIO_KEY}" }
    }
  }
}
```
Then, in a terminal opened after step 2, go to that folder and start Claude Code. Approve the Bevizio server when it asks, then type /mcp. You should see bevizio listed as connected. If it says failed, the usual causes are a key that was not saved in step 2 (open a new terminal and try again), a key that was revoked, or the file name ending in .txt.
Ask. Try “Using Bevizio, how often am I named by AI engines, and which engine names me least?”

Check an answer

Every answer your assistant quotes comes with a link to that answer in your dashboard. Open it and compare. Figures should match the dashboard for the same period. A few are worked out differently, for example a detected change counts only some answers, and a good assistant says so.

Your keys

You can have up to five keys. Each stops working after 90 days. Name each one after where you use it.
We email you when you create a key, about a week before one expires, and when you revoke one. If you did not do it, revoke the key and change your password.
In Settings you can revoke one key, or all of them at once. Deleting your account switches every key off immediately. Changing your password does not, so use “Revoke all keys” too if you ever think someone else has access.

Turn it off

To stop all access at once, open Settings, find Assistant connection and click Revoke all keys. To tidy up your computer as well, delete the .mcp.json file (or the bevizio entry in your assistant’s settings) and remove the BEVIZIO_KEY setting. Someone holding a key could read the same results your assistant can, nothing more: they could not change anything or see your email or billing details. Revoking the key ends their access.

Limits

A key can make about 60 requests a minute, and your account about 1,000 an hour. A normal conversation uses a handful. If you reach a limit, your assistant is told to wait a minute.

If something does not work

“Not available for this account yet.” The connection is not switched on for your account. Email us.
“Send your Bevizio connection key as ‘Authorization: Bearer’…”, or just “failed to connect”. Bevizio did not accept the key. The most common cause is that BEVIZIO_KEY is not set in the terminal you started the assistant from: open a new terminal, set it again (step 2) and restart the assistant. Other causes are a mistyped key, or a key that was revoked or has expired (make a new one in Settings). Some assistants show only “failed to connect” and not our message.
“Not switched on yet.” The connection is paused on our side. Try again in a few minutes, or email us.
“Has not finished setting up its product.” Finish setting up your product in Bevizio first, then try again.
“Part of the trial and paid plans.” Your account has no active plan. Choose one in Settings.
“The subscription has ended.” Restart the plan in Settings and the same key works again, if it has not expired.
“Too many requests.” Wait a minute and try again.
The data looks old. The newest answer’s date is at the top of every reply. If it is more than a week old, tell us.

Help

Write to hello@bevizio.com and a person will answer. How the numbers are collected, and what they cannot show, is on how we measure. The rules for using Bevizio are in the terms.