Setup Overview

Integrating Cello is a path you own end to end: connect the MCP server, build against your real product while your account is still in pre-launch, watch the steps verify themselves, then launch your program. This page covers the whole path.

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Start here

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Connect the Cello MCP server

Connect the Cello MCP server to your editor before you write any code. Your coding tool then has live access to Cello’s docs, your integration’s health, and best-practice recommendations, so it can tell you what to build next and flag what’s still missing. It is also where your integration status lives, so connecting it is how you check your work as you go, not just how you build faster.

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Know where you’re building

Everything below happens in your production account, while it is still in pre-launch phase. Events are recorded as test data, nothing is paid out, and notifications don’t send until you launch your program. You don’t need a sandbox for any of it. If integrating in a separate environment suits your development process better, a sandbox is available under My account in the portal, and everything there stays test data as well.

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Select your event sources

Cello can’t recognise your events until a signup source and a purchase source are both set in the portal. Until they are, nothing you build will flip to verified.

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Build your integration

Effort: ~1 day with MCP connected These four steps mirror the tasks on the Technical integration page in the portal, and each one flips to Verified from your setup on its own once Cello sees it working in your product. Complete them regardless of your tech stack or payment gateway. With the MCP server connected, your coding tool writes most of this and checks its own work as it goes, so the four steps together are typically about a day of coding. Without it, expect longer. The portal labels the same work slightly differently: Add the referral widget, Add attribution library, Track signups, Setup purchase event tracking, and Add discount code.

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Integration Guides

Ready-to-use webhook integrations for Stripe and Chargebee provide the fastest path to track referral conversions automatically.

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Performance enhancements

Recommended, not required The portal also shows recommendations (if they’re enabled for your account): enhancements scored across activation, sharing and conversion. See Performance Recommendations for how the score works. They don’t block Launch program, but they are what separates a program that performs from one that merely works. A referral program users can’t find doesn’t get used, however correct the integration behind it is. These are as much user-experience decisions as technical ones, so they may take some alignment before you build - worth starting that early. They’re also much easier to fold in while you’re already in the code, since they touch your navigation, your product’s key moments and your checkout.

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Verify and launch

Work through the pre-launch testbook while you build, and again at the end. It covers the manual, front-end checks Cello can’t see for you: whether the referral component sits well in your UI, whether the new-user banner reads correctly, and whether the discount math is right on both monthly and yearly plans. The Go live card in the portal stays locked while anything is outstanding. Once every task is complete, Launch program opens a short pre-launch checklist asking you to confirm you have tested:

• The referral widget loads and opens for signed-in users
• Notifications work: badge, announcement, email
• New users land on the correct page from a referral link
• The new-user discount shows correctly at checkout
• Signups and purchases are attributed correctly