How to connect Cline to LinkedIn, step by step

What you need

• A Finchreach account (sign in at finchreach.com) and the LinkedIn account you want Cline to work on.
• Cline.
• About five minutes.

Step 1: Create a Finchreach API key

1. Sign in at finchreach.com and open API keys.
2. Create a key and name it after the tool, for example “Cline”.
3. Copy it right away: it starts with lk_ and is shown only once.

Step 2: Connect your LinkedIn account

1. Open Accounts and click to connect LinkedIn.
2. Follow the steps until the account shows as connected.

Approval mode is on by default: nothing the assistant drafts reaches LinkedIn until you approve it.

Step 3: Add Finchreach to Cline

1. Click the MCP Servers icon → Configure → “Configure MCP Servers” to open cline_mcp_settings.json. (CLI: ~/.cline/data/settings/cline_mcp_settings.json.)
2. Paste the entry below. The “Remote Servers” tab has no header field, so edit the JSON.
3. Save; Cline reconnects and lists the finchreach tools.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "finchreach": {
      "type": "streamableHttp",
      "url": "https://mcp.finchreach.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer lk_YOUR_KEY"
      },
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

Replace lk_YOUR_KEY with your key. Keep the key out of shared files and repos; where Cline can read it from an environment variable, prefer that.

Headers are supported in the JSON settings.

Step 4: Test the connection

In Cline, start with a read. It runs right away and proves the key and the account work:

Ask your assistant“List my connected LinkedIn accounts, then summarize my five latest notifications.”

You should see calls to linkedin_list_accounts and linkedin_get_notifications. Then try a write, which goes to your approval queue instead of LinkedIn:

Ask your assistant“Draft a short LinkedIn post saying I’m trying a new AI assistant workflow. Submit it for my approval.”

Step 5: Approve or reject it in Finchreach

1. Open Approvals. The draft is there with its exact text and the account it would go out from.
2. Approve it to publish, or reject it (reject the test post if you don’t want it live).
3. Cline can check the result with linkedin_get_action: pending, approved, rejected, executed, failed or expired.

Troubleshooting

• Set "type": "streamableHttp" explicitly: without it Cline falls back to the legacy SSE transport and the connection fails.
• Leave autoApprove empty while you try it, so Cline asks before calling a tool (writes still wait in Finchreach’s approval queue either way).
• 401 or “unauthorized”: the key is wrong, revoked or missing its prefix. Finchreach accepts Authorization: Bearer lk_… or X-API-Key: lk_…; check for a missing Bearer , quotes or a trailing space.
• A tool is missing: the key’s permissions don’t include it. Create a key with the permissions you need under API keys.
• “No LinkedIn account”: connect one under Accounts, or reconnect it if its session expired.
• A post or message “didn’t go out”: it is probably still waiting under Approvals. Writes run only after you approve them.

Still stuck? Compare your setup with Cline’s documentation, checked on 2026-10-28; client screens change often.

What to ask Cline next

Ask your assistant“Write a LinkedIn post about our migration to this framework, using the commit history.”

Ask your assistant“Search LinkedIn for engineering managers at companies using this framework and list them.”

Ask your assistant“Summarize my LinkedIn notifications and draft replies to comments on my last post.”

More ideas on the Cline integration page.

Common questions