Clay Install & Auth

Overview

Clay is a web-based data enrichment platform — there is no SDK to install. Integration happens through webhook URLs (inbound data), HTTP API enrichment columns (outbound calls from Clay), and the Enterprise API (programmatic people/company lookups). This skill covers account setup, API key management, provider connections, and webhook configuration.

Prerequisites

• Clay account at clay.com (free tier available)
• For Enterprise API: Enterprise plan subscription
• For webhook integration: HTTPS endpoint or tunneling tool (ngrok)

Instructions

Step 1: Get Your Clay API Key (Enterprise Only)

Navigate to Settings > API in your Clay workspace. Copy your API key. Clay's Enterprise API is limited to people and company data lookups — it is not a general-purpose table API.

# Store your Clay API key securely
export CLAY_API_KEY="clay_ent_your_api_key_here"

# Verify with a test lookup (Enterprise API)
curl -s -X POST "https://api.clay.com/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CLAY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]"}' | jq .

Step 2: Configure Webhook Inbound Source

Every Clay table can receive data via a unique webhook URL. This is the primary way to send data into Clay programmatically.

1. Open a Clay workbook (or create one)
2. Click + Add at the bottom of the table
3. Search for Webhooks and click Monitor webhook
4. Copy the generated webhook URL

# Store your table's webhook URL
export CLAY_WEBHOOK_URL="https://app.clay.com/api/v1/webhooks/your-unique-id"

# Send a test record to your Clay table
curl -X POST "$CLAY_WEBHOOK_URL" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "first_name": "Jane",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "company": "Acme Corp",
    "title": "VP of Sales"
  }'