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Agent guide · 26 September 2026

How to set up a data room with Claude

Type “set up a data room for my seed round” into claude.ai and Claude can do most of it: create the room, sort the documents, set up investor groups, send invitations once you approve them, and answer questions with a citation to the page or cell. The one part it usually cannot do alone is reach the files on your laptop. This guide covers the connection, the prompts, and the three ways around that.

  1. Create
    create_data_room
  2. Upload
    four paths, one is you
  3. Organize
    folders + Smart Sort
  4. Invite
    held for your approval
  5. Ask
    cited answers, engagement
What Claude does with the Sifrsys connector, in the order a seed round needs it.

Connect Sifrsys to claude.ai

claude.ai connects to remote tools through custom connectors, which speak the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Sifrsys runs a hosted MCP server at https://sifrsys.com/mcp. There is no API key to paste: claude.ai registers itself with Sifrsys and you sign in through OAuth. Menu names below are from Anthropic's help centre, checked 26 September 2026.

Step 1. Add the connector

On Free, Pro or Max: Customize → Connectors, click +, then Add custom connector. Enter the URL and click Add. Leave Advanced settings empty.

Remote MCP server URL
https://sifrsys.com/mcp

On Team or Enterprise, only an Owner can add it: Organization settings → Connectors, Add, hover Custom, choose Web. Members then connect to it individually. On the Free plan Claude allows one custom connector.

Step 2. Sign in and approve

Click Connect. A Sifrsys page opens; sign in (or create a free account) and you see a consent screen naming Claude, listing in plain English what it may do, and asking which organization to grant. Approve it. You can see and revoke the connection later under Settings → Agents & API → Connected apps in Sifrsys.

Step 3. Switch it on in a chat

Open a new chat, click + at the lower left, choose Connectors, and turn Sifrsys on. Claude now sees the 17 Sifrsys tools. If you plan to attach files for Claude to upload, also check that Code execution and file creation is on under Settings → Capabilities (it is on by default on paid Claude plans and off on Free).

Prompts to copy

These are plain requests; Claude picks the tools. The tool each one leads to is named so you can check what happened in the Sifrsys audit log.

Step 4. Create the room

Creates the room (create_data_room)
Using Sifrsys, create a data room called "Acme — Seed Round" and give me the room's upload link.

Claude gets back the room id and upload_page_url, a link of the form https://sifrsys.com/room/<id>. Keep it; it is the fallback for uploads.

Step 5. Get the documents in

Files attached to the chat (request_upload_urls, then finalize_uploads)
I've attached our deck, financial model and cap table. Upload them to the Acme — Seed Round room.
Files on your laptop, by path
Upload everything in ~/Documents/Acme/Seed to the room.

The second prompt will not work in claude.ai, and a well-behaved Claude will say so: it has no access to ~/Documents. Sifrsys tells it what to do instead, which is to send you the room's upload link, ask you to upload the files with the Upload button, and poll get_room_overviewevery 15 to 30 seconds until the room's document count goes up. The next section explains the three routes.

Files at a link (upload_from_url)
Add this to the room: https://example.com/acme-deck.pdf
A document Claude writes (upload_inline_document)
Write a one-page data room index listing what each folder contains and upload it to the room as "00 Index.txt".

Step 6. Organize, invite, ask

Folders and Smart Sort (organize_documents)
Create folders Corporate, Financials, Legal, Team and Product in the room, then run Smart Sort and show me where it wants to put each file before moving anything.

Smart Sort first runs as a preview with a confidence score per document. When you say go ahead, Claude runs it again with apply=true, which moves documents at 0.7 confidence or higher.

A permission group and invitations (invite_participants)
Create a group called "Lead investors" with view-only access, watermarking on, downloads off and Q&A on. Invite Jane Doe (jane@fund.example) and Mark Lee (mark@capital.example) into it.

Claude creates the group immediately, then gets a pending_approvalback for the invitations. Approve it in Sifrsys under Settings → Agents & API (admins also get an email), then tell Claude:

After you approve (get_pending_approvals, then the same call with approval_id)
I approved it. Send the invitations.
A per-folder permission (set_permissions, approval-gated)
Give the Lead investors group download access on the Financials folder.
Ask the room AI (ask_room_ai)
Ask the room AI what our monthly net burn was in the last three months of the model, and give me the sheet and cell range it read.

Documents become searchable about a minute after upload. The answer comes back with citations to a PDF page or a spreadsheet range, and it is fenced to the documents the connected account may see. How that fence works, and what we measured, is in Can your data room AI see what you cannot?

Engagement (get_engagement_report)
Who opened the room this week, who hasn't, and is anyone going cold?

The anomaly alerts in that report (gone-cold investors, engagement drops) need Room Intelligence, which is on Pro. On other plans the report still returns per-participant engagement.

Files on your laptop: the three ways around it

Everything except the upload is a tool call from Claude to Sifrsys, and tool calls to an MCP server are not subject to Claude's sandbox network rules. Only HTTP requests made by the code Claude runs are. The signed-URL upload is such a request: Claude's code sends the file's bytes to auth.sifrsys.com. Anthropic's documentation lists the default egress setting as package managers only, so that request is blocked until you allow it.

The four ways a document gets into a room. All four run the same validation, storage quota, duplicate detection and audit logging.
CriterionToolLimitNeeds outbound network from the agent?
Signed URLAgent PUTs the bytesrequest_upload_urls → HTTP PUT → finalize_uploads100 MB per file, 25 files per call, URL valid about 5 minutesYes, to auth.sifrsys.com
InlineContent inside the tool callupload_inline_document4 MB decodedNo
From a linkSifrsys fetches itupload_from_url20 MB, https only, no login or cookiesNo
Upload page hand-offYou upload, the agent waitsupload_page_url, then get_room_overview until document_count risesWhatever your plan's storage allowsNo
The four ways a document gets into a room. All four run the same validation, storage quota, duplicate detection and audit logging.
  1. Allow auth.sifrsys.com and attach the files. On Pro or Max, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on Allow network egress; on Team or Enterprise an Owner sets it under Organization settings → Capabilities, choosing “Allow network egress to package managers and specific domains” and adding auth.sifrsys.com. Anthropic caps chat attachments at 30 MB per file. This is the only route where Claude moves the bytes itself.
  2. Give Claude links. If the files already sit behind an https link that opens without a login (a pre-signed S3 or GCS link, a Dropbox or Drive direct-download link), Claude calls upload_from_url and Sifrsys fetches it, up to 20 MB.
  3. Upload them yourself on the room page. Open the upload_page_url Claude sent, click Upload, select the files. Claude watches the document count and carries on with organizing and invitations when they arrive. For more than a few files this is usually the fastest route.

Which agent for which situation

Which agent fits which situation. Client behaviour checked against each vendor's documentation on 26 September 2026; Sifrsys limits from the MCP server source.
Criterionclaude.ai (web, desktop)ChatGPT (developer mode)Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI
Sign-in to SifrsysOAuth consent screen, no key to pasteOAuth consent screen, no key to pasteAPI key (sifr_live_…) in a header
Files on your own diskThe common case for a seed roundAttach them to the chat and allow auth.sifrsys.com in network settings, or use the upload pageUpload page: you drop the files in, the agent carries onWorks natively: the agent reads the folder and uploads it
Files at an https linkupload_from_url, up to 20 MBupload_from_url, up to 20 MBAny of the four paths
Documents the agent writes (index, FAQ, summary)upload_inline_document, up to 4 MBupload_inline_document, up to 4 MBupload_inline_document, or write the file and upload it
Large filesSigned URL (100 MB) only once egress to auth.sifrsys.com is allowedUpload pageSigned URL, up to 100 MB each
Client plans that can connectFree (one custom connector), Pro, Max, Team, EnterprisePlus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, Edu, on the webAny: the client runs on your machine
Best forFounders who live in Claude and have a handful of filesTeams already on ChatGPT; organizing, inviting and asking once files are inA folder of 30+ files, repeatable setups, anything scripted
Which agent fits which situation. Client behaviour checked against each vendor's documentation on 26 September 2026; Sifrsys limits from the MCP server source.

If your documents are a folder on your machine and there are more than a handful of them, a local agent is simpler: see setting up a data room with Claude Code, Cursor or Codex.

What an agent is never allowed to do by default

Every Sifrsys organization has a policy matrix that sets each class of agent action to allow, require approval, or deny. The defaults below are the ones in the server code. An owner or admin can change them under Settings → Agents & API; nothing an agent says in a chat can.

Default agent policy per action class (DEFAULT_POLICIES in the gateway). A Q&A draft is never visible to the person who asked until it is published, and publishing needs your approval by default.
CriterionDefaultWhat it covers
DeniedRefused with denied_by_policyDeleting or suspending: documents, folders (and merging duplicate folders), participants, groups, and the room itself. Also changing room branding (configure_branding) and publishing the room's participant portal
Needs your approvalReturns a pending_approval handleSending or resending invitations (invite_participants, resend_invite); widening access: a permission on a specific document or folder (set_permissions), a more permissive group, a later or removed access expiry, reactivating a suspended participant; publishing a Q&A answer to the person who asked, assigning a question, changing its status
AllowedRuns immediately, loggedReading, creating rooms, uploading (including new versions of a document), renaming and moving documents and folders, removing empty folders, Smart Sort, creating groups, narrowing access, asking the room AI, drafting Q&A answers, restoring a suspended room
Default agent policy per action class (DEFAULT_POLICIES in the gateway). A Q&A draft is never visible to the person who asked until it is published, and publishing needs your approval by default.

An approval goes to the organization's admins by email and appears under Settings → Agents & API. It is single-use, matched to the exact request the agent made, and expires after 24 hours, so an approval for inviting two people cannot be replayed to invite a third. Every agent action, allowed or not, lands in the room's hash-chained audit log as actor_type=agent with the human who connected it. A key or connection can never do more than the person who created it, and an org-wide switch turns all agent access off at once.

Document text that comes back through ask_room_ai or list_qa is wrapped and labelled as untrusted data, because it was written by the other side of the deal. The threat model explains why.

Agent access is on every Sifrsys plan, the free one included. An agent works inside your plan's limits (the free plan is one room, 100 MB of storage and five participants per room), and the only agent meter is a monthly budget of room-AI questions: 250 on Free, 10,000 on Teams, 50,000 on Pro. Creating, uploading, organizing and inviting are not metered. Bursts are capped at 60 requests a minute per connection. Plans are on the pricing page.

Troubleshooting

The upload fails with a network or 403 error from the sandbox

Claude's code tried to PUT to auth.sifrsys.comand the egress policy refused it. Allow the domain (Settings → Capabilities; on Team/Enterprise, Organization settings → Capabilities) and ask Claude to retry, or ask it to switch to the room's upload page. The upload link it was holding expires after about five minutes, so a retry requests a new one; an upload that was never finalized is cleaned up automatically.

Claude doesn't know about upload_from_url or the upload page

The connector's tool list is read when it connects. Remove Sifrsys under Customize → Connectors (the three-dot menu) and add it again, then start a new chat. Anthropic's documentation gives remove-and-re-add as the way to update a connector.

denied_by_policy

The action is one of the denied classes above. An owner or admin can change the policy under Settings → Agents & API, or do it in the dashboard directly.

limit_reached

The organization is at a plan limit (rooms, participants per room, storage). The free plan allows one room, so a second “create a data room” fails there by design.

The approval never arrives

Approvals expire after 24 hours. Ask Claude to check with get_pending_approvals; if it expired, ask it to make the request again.

Sources

Client steps checked on 26 September 2026 against Anthropic's help centre: Getting started with custom connectors using remote MCP (page dated 11 August 2026) and Create and edit files with Claude (network egress settings, page dated 6 August 2026). Sifrsys tool names, limits and policy defaults are from the MCP server source; the full reference is on the developers page. If Anthropic moves a menu, this page is wrong until we re-check it; the dates are here so you can tell.

The other agent guides: With ChatGPT · With Claude Code, Cursor, Codex · Developer reference · The walkthrough, with the real tool calls

FAQ

Data rooms with Claude, answered.

Yes, if the data room exposes an MCP server Claude can connect to. With Sifrsys connected as a custom connector in claude.ai, Claude can create the room, add documents, create folders and permission groups, invite participants (after you approve), ask the room's AI cited questions, and report on engagement. It cannot delete anything, change branding or publish the portal unless an admin changes the defaults.
claude.ai runs in Anthropic's cloud and cannot see your disk. Files you attach to the chat are copied into Claude's code sandbox, whose outbound network access is limited to package registries by default, so the upload to Sifrsys is blocked until you allow auth.sifrsys.com under Settings → Capabilities. The alternatives are to give Claude an https link to each file, or to upload the files yourself on the room page Claude sends you.
No. Anthropic's help centre, checked 26 September 2026, says custom connectors are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, with Free limited to one custom connector. Code execution, which the attached-file upload route needs, is on by default on paid plans and must be switched on under Settings → Capabilities on Free.
No. Agent access is included on every Sifrsys plan including Free. The free plan allows one room, 100 MB of storage, five participants per room and 250 room-AI questions a month.
Invitations are held for approval by default. Claude receives a pending approval, an admin approves or denies it in Sifrsys, and only then does Claude retry. The approval is single-use and bound to the exact invitation list, and it expires after 24 hours.
claude.ai reads the tool list when the connector connects. If Sifrsys has added a tool since, remove the connector under Customize → Connectors and add it again; Anthropic's documentation says an existing connector is updated by removing and re-adding it.

Free plan includes agent access

Connect it, then ask Claude for the room.

Create a Sifrsys account, add https://sifrsys.com/mcp as a custom connector, and start with the first prompt above.

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