# Ask an assistant

> Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Le Chat to Vallic's public connector and ask about configurations, prices and this handbook in your own words.

Vallic has a public connector for AI assistants. Add it to the assistant you
already use and it can look up what Vallic sells, what a configuration costs
and what this handbook says, and answer in a conversation.

It speaks the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which Claude, ChatGPT, Le Chat and
most other assistants support.

## Connecting it

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Address | `https://vallic.com/mcp` |
| Transport | Streamable HTTP |
| Authentication | None |

In your assistant, add a custom connector (some call it a custom MCP server)
and give it the address. There is nothing to sign in to and no key to paste.

## What it can do

Seven tools, all read-only:

| Tool | What it answers |
| --- | --- |
| `vallic_configuration_options` | The plans, shapes, applications, regions, machines and services you can choose between, narrowed by what you have already chosen |
| `vallic_check_choices` | Whether a plan, shape, application and region go together, and why not if they do not |
| `vallic_prices` | The published price list: every region with what a machine starts at, or one region's machines in full |
| `vallic_estimate_machines` | What a number of machines cost a month, in EUR, USD or GBP |
| `vallic_estimate_configuration` | A whole configuration, line by line: machines, disks, support, uptime, backups, previews, and the discount for the billing period |
| `vallic_search_docs` | The handbook pages that match a question |
| `vallic_read_documentation` | One handbook page in full |

## Things to ask

- What configuration choices are there for a Drupal application in Frankfurt?
- Which regions are there, and what do machines start at in each?
- Estimate a Drupal site with advanced support, quarterly billing and 30-day backups.
- Can I have the Dedicated shape on the Shared plan?
- What does Vallic recommend for backups?

## What an estimate is

An estimate is the fixed monthly cost of what you described, before tax. It is
the same arithmetic the console's configurator does, so the two agree.

- **Tax is not in it.** That depends on your billing address.
- **Autoscale usage is not in it.** It is billed by the day while a machine is
  scaled up; see [Scaling](scaling.md).
- **It is not an order.** Nothing is reserved or bought. Whether the provider
  has the machine in stock, and your account's limits, are checked when you
  check out in the console.

`vallic_estimate_machines` is narrower still: machines only, without disks,
support, add-ons or the billing discount. Ask for a full configuration when you
want the number you would pay.

The published list is on the [price list](/cloud/pricing), and what the plans
and shapes mean is on [Plans](plans.md) and [Shapes](shapes.md).

## What it cannot do

The connector is public and reads only what is public. It has no access to any
account: it cannot see your projects, machines or invoices, and it cannot buy,
change or deploy anything. For your own projects use the console, the
[CLI](vallic-cli.md) or [the API](api.md).

## What it keeps

Nothing about what you asked. The questions and the answers are not stored.

A request is logged the way any request to the site is: the address it came
from, which is normally your assistant's provider and not you, with the time
and the result. One address may make 60 requests a minute. What you type into
the assistant is handled by its provider, under their terms.