ZEN MCP

An MCP server that lets AI assistants work with the ZEN.com Payment Gateway: hosted payment links, transaction lookup, refunds, payouts, and reporting.

Project page

Unofficial. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or maintained by ZEN.com.

What it does

Read-only tools:

List terminal payment methods and documented currencies.
Look up transactions, payment links, and payouts.
List payment links and request reconciliation reports.
Verify IPN webhook signatures locally.

Write tools:

Create hosted payment links and QR codes without handling card data.
Capture or cancel transactions and issue full or partial refunds.
Create payouts and customer records.

Disclaimer

This integration was built from public ZEN documentation without access to a live merchant account. Endpoint versions, request fields, response fields, signing details, and webhook behavior must be checked against ZEN's current OpenAPI or Postman collection before production use. Mock mode is included for evaluation without an account.

Install

Add the published package to Claude Code:

Terminal

claude mcp add zen --env ZEN_API_KEY=your_terminal_api_key -- npx -y @krystiangw/zen-mcp

For Claude Desktop, add this entry to its MCP configuration:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zen": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@krystiangw/zen-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ZEN_API_KEY": "your_terminal_api_key",
        "ZEN_PAYWALL_SECRET": "your_paywall_secret",
        "ZEN_IPN_SECRET": "your_ipn_secret",
        "ZEN_ENV": "sandbox"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

Variable	Required	Description
`ZEN_API_KEY`	Outside mock mode	Terminal API Key sent in `Authorization` without a Bearer prefix
`ZEN_PAYWALL_SECRET`	Write operations	Checkout/paywall secret used to sign request bodies
`ZEN_IPN_SECRET`	Webhook verification	IPN secret used only by `verify_webhook_signature`
`ZEN_ENV`	No	`sandbox` (default) or `production`
`ZEN_BASE_URL`	No	API base URL override; takes priority over `ZEN_ENV`
`ZEN_MOCK`	No	`1` or `true` enables deterministic offline responses
`ZEN_HASH_ALG`	No	`sha224`, `sha256` (default), `sha384`, or `sha512`

In the ZEN merchant panel, go to my.zen.com → Shop settings → Terminal to find the Terminal API Key. Use sandbox first; the default API host is api.zen-test.com, although sandbox availability and onboarding requirements should be confirmed with ZEN.

No merchant account yet? You can open a ZEN business account. That is a referral link: it credits the author of this project if you sign up through it, and costs you nothing. Every other link in this README is a plain one.

Tools

Name	Type	Description
`list_payment_methods`	Read	List payment methods for the terminal
`get_transaction`	Read	Get a transaction by ZEN or merchant ID
`list_payment_links`	Read	List hosted payment links
`get_payment_link`	Read	Get one hosted payment link
`get_payout`	Read	Get a payout by ZEN ID
`download_report`	Read	Request a report download
`list_supported_currencies`	Read	List documented supported currencies
`verify_webhook_signature`	Read	Verify a ZEN IPN signature locally
`create_payment_link`	Write	Create a hosted checkout link and QR code
`refund_transaction`	Write, destructive	Issue a full or partial refund
`capture_transaction`	Write, destructive	Capture an authorized transaction
`cancel_transaction`	Write, destructive	Cancel a transaction
`create_payout`	Write, destructive	Send an outbound payout
`create_customer`	Write	Create a customer record

Security

Tools are read-only by default; operations that move or reverse money are marked destructive for MCP clients.
Secrets are read only from environment variables and are never tool arguments.
Payment acceptance uses ZEN-hosted links, so this server does not collect or transmit card numbers.
The signing algorithm follows public ZEN documentation, but nested-object and array flattening are not fully specified publicly. Verify it against the live API.
Verify every IPN webhook signature with ZEN_IPN_SECRET before trusting its contents.
Use least-privilege terminal credentials and keep human confirmation enabled for write tools.

Demo without an account

Run the server with deterministic canned API responses:

ZEN_MOCK=1 ZEN_IPN_SECRET=demo npx -y @krystiangw/zen-mcp

verify_webhook_signature does real cryptography instead of calling the API, so it needs a secret even in mock mode. Any value works for a demo.

From a development checkout:

Terminal

npm install
npm run build
ZEN_MOCK=1 ZEN_IPN_SECRET=demo npm run inspect

Development

Requires Node.js 18 or newer.

Terminal

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm run build
npm test
ZEN_MOCK=1 ZEN_IPN_SECRET=demo npm run inspect

Roadmap

Raw card charges only after a deliberate PCI/security design; they are excluded from the MVP.
Recurring and one-click payments after the tokenization flow is verified.
Consumer ZEN features such as cashback and personal cards if ZEN publishes a supported API.
Remote Streamable HTTP transport and OAuth after the stdio MVP.

License

MIT