Grok Custom Connector: Give Grok Your Business Context
Grok can now take a custom connector. As of mid-2026, xAI added "Bring Your Own MCP" support, which means you can point Grok at your own tools and data instead of relying only on what you paste into the chat.
That is a real shift. For most of its life, Grok could see the file you uploaded or the built-in connector you picked, and nothing else. Your business does not live in one file. It lives in a variety of places: your docs, your website, your inboxes, and your project tools.
This guide shows you how a grok custom connector actually works, and two honest ways to give Grok your business context. The first uses Grok's custom MCP feature pointed at a hosted knowledge base. The second is a no-setup fallback you can test in a minute. Neither one requires you to write code or move your content anywhere.
One thing up front, because it matters: there is no official "Context Link Grok integration" button. What exists is Grok's own custom connector feature, and you can point it at Context Link's MCP server. We will be precise about that throughout.
Does Grok support custom connectors?
Yes. As of mid-2026, Grok supports custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers through a feature xAI calls Bring Your Own MCP. You add one at grok.com/connectors, choose New Connector, then Custom, and paste any MCP server URL that is reachable over the public internet. Custom connectors sit on Grok's paid tiers.
This makes Grok the fourth major assistant, after Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, to expose a way to plug in your own MCP server. If you already understand connectors in those tools, the Grok version will feel familiar.
MCP is the open standard that lets AI assistants talk to external tools and data through one common protocol. The practical upshot: any service that runs an MCP server can become a Grok connector, without xAI having to build a native integration for it first.
What a grok custom connector actually unlocks
Grok ships with built-in connectors and file upload. Both are useful, but both share the same limit: they see one source at a time. You still have to know which tool holds the answer before you ask.
Think about a normal question like "what did we quote this customer in May?" The answer might live in an email thread, a Google Doc, and a Basecamp message. A single-source connector cannot join those up. You end up switching tabs and doing the retrieval yourself.
A custom connector changes the shape of the problem. Instead of wiring Grok to one tool, you can wire it to a connected knowledge base that already spans your sources. Then Grok asks across everything in one query, and you stop guessing where the information lives.
That is the difference worth setting up. Not "Grok can now read one more app," but "Grok can now ask your whole business at once."
Method 1: Add Context Link as a custom MCP connector in Grok
Here is the honest version of what happens in this method. Grok's custom connector feature accepts any public MCP server URL. Context Link runs a hosted MCP server, the same one Claude Code and other MCP-aware agents already use. So you use Grok's feature to point at Context Link's server. Grok does the connecting; Context Link supplies the endpoint and the search.
This is the setup to use when you want Grok to query your business on demand, with source-backed answers, and you already keep your content in tools like Notion or Google Docs.
Step 1: Connect your sources in Context Link
First, give Context Link something to search. Sign in, then connect the places your business already lives. Context Link keeps them in sync as one connected knowledge base, with a default 24-hour re-sync so the index reflects your current sources.
You can connect a wide set of sources:
- Google Docs and Google Drive: folders, documents, and Sheets
- Notion: workspaces, pages, and databases
- OneDrive: folders and files
- Basecamp: messages, to-dos, docs, and chats
- Monday.com: docs, updates, and files from the workspaces you choose
- Any website: your own domains or trusted third-party sites, crawled by sitemap or URL list
- Named file stacks: uploaded PDFs, Word docs, Markdown, spreadsheets, and more
- Email inboxes and folders: Gmail, Outlook, Zoho, Fastmail, or custom domains over IMAP, with selective folder sync
- Custom connections: any tool an AI can read, pushed in via the custom-connections skill
- Context Link Memories: canonical business knowledge you save under a /slash route
If your tool is not on the pre-built list, you do not have to wait for a connector. Download the custom-connections skill and your AI builds the connection: it fetches the data, converts it to markdown, and pushes it in. The short version is simple. If Claude can read it, you can push it to Context Link.
Step 2: Add the MCP server as a custom connector in Grok
Once your sources are syncing, wire up Grok:
- Go to
grok.com/connectors. - Click New Connector, then choose Custom.
- Paste Context Link's MCP server URL.
- Complete the authentication step so Grok can reach your account's data.
Grok then discovers the tools the MCP server exposes and makes them available in your conversations, the same way its built-in connectors work. You are on a paid Grok tier for this, and the server has to be reachable over the public internet, which Context Link's hosted server already is. For the exact connector screens and any tier details, check xAI's connector docs, since that is the side of the setup xAI controls.
Step 3: Ask Grok across your business
Now Grok can pull from your connected sources instead of guessing. The primary move is Get Context: ask Grok to get context on a topic, and Context Link returns the matching chunks from across your sources as clean markdown for Grok to reason over.
There is also a secondary option, Ask Question, for when you want a single grounded paragraph with numbered citations rather than the raw material. It is invoked as a skill, not by pasting a URL. Get Context is the workhorse; reach for Ask Question when you just want the answer.
A quick note on limits, because we would rather you know upfront. Ask Question runs a small model under the hood, and the public allowance is 1,000 requests per month. Get Context retrieval is the primary workflow and is what you will lean on most.
Method 2: Paste your Context Link URL into Grok (no-setup fallback)
Not ready to set up a paid Grok connector? There is a simpler path that works today, on any Grok chat.
Every Context Link account gets a personal subdomain, like oli.context-link.ai. Add a topic to it, paste that URL into a Grok conversation, and Grok fetches the page. Context Link runs a semantic search across your connected sources and hands back the relevant snippets as markdown.
This is the quickest way to test the idea before committing to connector setup. It is also handy when you are on a Grok tier without custom connectors. The trade-off is that it is a manual paste each time, rather than a standing connection Grok can call on its own.
We cover this and the other retrieval options in more depth in our guide to RAG for Grok, which compares file upload, the Collections API, the URL method, and custom pipelines side by side.
Connecting a single tool vs your whole business
It is worth contrasting this with the single-source route. You can connect one tool to Grok directly, and we have step-by-step guides for that, like connecting Notion to Grok or connecting a website to Grok.
Those are the right call when you genuinely only need one source. But most questions do not respect tool boundaries. Pricing gets discussed over email, documented in a Google Doc, and summarized in Basecamp. A single-source connector makes you pick one and miss the rest.
The custom connector approach in Method 1 is different because it puts one AI knowledge base behind the connector. Grok asks once, and Context Link searches Notion, Docs, email, Basecamp, Monday.com, your website, files, and Memories together. You connect once and ask across everything.
Trade-offs and honest limits
No setup is free of sharp edges. Here are the ones worth knowing before you start.
- Grok custom connectors need a paid tier. Bring Your Own MCP is not on the free plan, and the server must be publicly reachable. Context Link's hosted MCP server meets that requirement out of the box.
- Sync is scheduled, not instant. Connected sources re-sync on a default 24-hour cycle. That keeps the index current without hammering your tools, but it is not real-time. If you just changed a doc a minute ago, give it time to sync.
- The Ask Question allowance is 1,000 requests per month. Get Context retrieval is the primary workflow and what most people use most of the time.
- This is Grok's feature, not a native Context Link app. You are pointing Grok's custom MCP connector at Context Link's server. If xAI changes how custom connectors work, follow their docs for the current steps.
The upside of doing it this way is portability. The same Context Link setup already works from inside Claude, ChatGPT, and any MCP-aware agent. You are not building a Grok-only solution. You are giving one connected knowledge base to whichever AI tool you happen to open, and Grok is simply the newest one to join. For a full rundown of every access method, see our guide to the ways to talk to Context Link.
Key takeaways
Grok finally takes a custom connector, and that opens up a much better way to work with it.
- Grok supports custom MCP servers through Bring Your Own MCP, added mid-2026, on its paid tiers.
- A grok custom connector can point at a whole knowledge base, not just one app, so Grok asks across everything at once.
- Method 1 wires Grok's custom connector to Context Link's hosted MCP server for on-demand, source-backed answers.
- Method 2 is the no-setup fallback: paste your personal Context Link URL into a Grok chat.
- This is Grok's feature plus Context Link's server, not a native Grok integration, and the same setup works across Claude and ChatGPT too.
The next step is small. Connect one source in Context Link, sync it, then either add it to Grok as a custom connector or paste your URL to test it in a single chat. Start with the source you re-explain to AI the most, and let Grok ask it directly from now on.