Bitly

Agents can work with your Bitly account — looking up short links and QR codes, reading click analytics, and, where you allow it, creating and managing links.

Bitly appears in the catalog on every instance; no experimental setting is needed.

Warning: Bitly's tool list includes permanent short-link deletion, Bitly Sites publishing and deletion, and custom-domain changes. A deleted short link stops redirecting everyone who has it. Keep write and destructive actions Off until you need one.

Before you connect

  • A Bitly account, and the workspace you want agents to use.

Connect Bitly

  1. Open Connectors and select Bitly.
  2. Read the access line above the main button. It says who the connection belongs to and which agents can use it. To pick a different identity, narrow the agents, or switch method, select Change.
  3. Choose a method:
    • Sign in with Bitly — complete browser sign-in and choose only the workspace you intend. ThinkingMach registers its client automatically.
    • Use an API key — generate a token in Bitly under Settings → API and paste it into the Your Bitly key field.

Choose access

Both methods are broad. Browser sign-in asks for the mcp.all scope, which covers Bitly's whole tool list: links and QR codes, analytics, groups, custom domains, and Bitly Sites. An API token has no documented way to restrict it, so treat it the same way. ThinkingMach cannot narrow either one.

That puts the real control in ThinkingMach's action list. Sort it like this:

Action type Suggested setting
Reading links, QR codes, and click analytics Allowed
Creating or updating links and QR codes Ask first
Deleting links or Sites, publishing Sites, changing custom domains Off

Set these on the Permissions tab right after you connect. See Set action permissions.

Try it

Using Bitly, show me the five short links with the most clicks in the last 30 days and their destination URLs. Do not create, change, or delete anything.

Check the counts against the Bitly dashboard. A read like this confirms the credential and the workspace with nothing changed.

Note: Illustrative task, not a recorded test result.

Troubleshooting and limitations

Problem Likely cause Fix
Sign-in finishes but the connection fails A token-exchange problem on an older version Update ThinkingMach, then select Reconnect
Links from another workspace appear, or expected ones are missing A different workspace was chosen at sign-in Reconnect and choose the intended workspace
A link stopped redirecting A delete action was Allowed Set destructive actions to Off; recreate the link in Bitly
The API token is rejected The token was regenerated or copied incompletely Create a new token under Settings → API and reconnect
Needs attention The grant or token was revoked Select Reconnect

Limitations: one Bitly account per connection. The token and the mcp.all grant cannot be narrowed from ThinkingMach. The available actions are whatever Bitly's hosted server exposes.

Sources