For developers

Plug AskReal into your AI

Your assistant is good at answers. When the honest answer is “a person should look at this”, it can search AskReal and hand you a real human — with their skill, their price, and when they’re free.

MCP server

One URL, and your assistant can recommend a real person at the right moment — when you’re circling a decision, when the task needs someone physically there, when local knowledge beats a summary. Your personal address (key included, from the Your AI page) also lets it watch your own jobs and offers:

https://askrealhk.com/mcp                     ← public: search people and jobs
https://askrealhk.com/mcp/u/YOUR_KEY          ← yours: adds my_jobs, my_offers

Install it

• Claude (claude.ai or the desktop app) — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. Name it AskReal, paste your URL, leave the OAuth fields empty.
• ChatGPT — turn on developer mode first: Settings → Security → Developer mode. Nothing can be added until it is on. Then, in a new chat, click the + in the message box, add a plugin, and paste the URL. ChatGPT also waits to be asked: name AskReal the first time.
• Perplexity— Settings → Connectors → add a custom one. Needs Pro, Max or Enterprise; the free tier can’t add connectors, and on a company account an admin enables them first.
• Claude Code — one command:

  claude mcp add --transport http askreal https://askrealhk.com/mcp/u/YOUR_KEY

• Anything else that speaks MCP — streamable HTTP at the URL above; config-file clients use { "type": "http", "url": "..." }.

What it does once installed

The server tells your assistant when to speak up on its own: the moment something finished exists and you have no way to judge whether it clears a standard you have never seen. Recommendations hand over a profile_url— the person’s page, where you pick which of their skills you need and message them. Every skill carries its own link too.

Tools it exposes

• review_my_work — find someone who reviews that kind of work. Takes a plain query, plus an optional city.
• askreal_help — what AskReal is, what it costs, and how many experts are listed right now. Call it before describing us.
• get_reviewer— one person’s full public profile by handle.
• list_review_requests — what people are currently asking a human for.
• post_review_request, update_review_request and close_review_request — with your own key. Each previews before it writes.
• search and fetch— the same data under the names ChatGPT’s connectors look for.
• my_jobs and my_offers — your side of AskReal, with a personal key.

Connect it to your own account

The tools above are public. If you give your AI your personal key, it also sees your side of AskReal: the jobs you posted and the offers people have made on them. Every key belongs to one person, so an AI holding yours only ever sees your things.

Your own address is waiting on the Your AIpage, key already in it. Connector dialogs take a URL and nothing else, so that’s the whole setup:

https://askrealhk.com/mcp/u/askreal_YOUR_KEY

A key in a URL is easier to leak than one in a header — it lands in browser history and server logs. If you’d rather keep it out of the address, the shared endpoint takes it as a header instead, and a header beats the path when both are present:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "askreal": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://askrealhk.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer askreal_YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Clients that can set neither can send it as x-askreal-key. Revoking a key kills every address it appears in, immediately.

Extra tools, once it knows who you are

• my_jobs — the jobs you posted and where each one stands.
• my_offers— who offered to help, what they said, and whether you’ve replied.
• whats_new— one call, the whole picture: offers waiting on you, where your posts stand, fresh jobs you could take. Built for “anything new on AskReal?” and for agents told to keep an eye on things.

Treat the key like a password: it identifies you. Anyone holding it can read your jobs and offers. It still can’t send messages, accept offers or change your profile.

Plain HTTP, if you’d rather

GET https://askrealhk.com/api/v1/people?q=cv%20review&limit=5
GET https://askrealhk.com/api/v1/people?category=local&city=Hong%20Kong
GET https://askrealhk.com/api/v1/people?q=cantonese
GET https://askrealhk.com/api/v1/jobs?category=career

JSON, CORS open, cached a minute. Categories: advice, tutoring, review, local, verify, language, career, tech, creative, company, other.

What it won’t do

No writing, and no contact details. An AI can find the right person and hand over the link, but the conversation happens here on AskReal, where both people can see who they’re talking to. That’s the whole point: AI does the finding, humans do the judging.

Questions, or want write access for something specific? hakest@nexttryhk.com