Lessie — People Search & Enrichment

Setup

Lessie supports two modes: CLI (default, recommended) and MCP Server.

Mode A: CLI (default)

Install the Lessie CLI binary:

npm install -g @lessie/cli

Or use without installing:

npx @lessie/cli --version

First-time authorization:

lessie auth

This opens a browser for login/registration. Token is cached at ~/.lessie/oauth.json.

Verify connection:

lessie status

Mode B: MCP Server

Add to your MCP config (Claude Code ~/.claude/mcp.json, Cursor ~/.cursor/mcp.json, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lessie": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@lessie/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "LESSIE_REMOTE_MCP_URL": "https://app.lessie.ai/mcp-server/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Uninstall

CLI: npm uninstall -g @lessie/cli && rm -rf ~/.lessie/
MCP: Remove the "lessie" entry from your .mcp.json and rm -rf ~/.lessie/

Quick start

After setup, try saying to Claude:

"Find Engineering Managers at Stripe in San Francisco"
"Look up Sam Altman's contact info"
"Research OpenAI — recent news and open job postings"

Mode detection

Determine which mode to use at the start of each session:

Check if lessie CLI is available: run lessie status
If the command succeeds → use CLI mode (call tools via Bash)
If the command fails (not found) → attempt auto-install: npm install -g @lessie/cli
After install, run lessie status again to verify
If install succeeds → use CLI mode
If install fails (no npm, permission denied, network error, etc.) → check if MCP tools are available (authorize, use_lessie)
If MCP tools are available → use MCP mode
If neither → inform the user that installation failed and suggest manual install or MCP setup

Credits & Pricing

Lessie is a credit-based service.

New accounts receive free trial credits. View your balance and purchase more at https://lessie.ai/pricing.

The agent will disambiguate company names before searching to avoid wasting credits on wrong results.

Data & Privacy

Data sources: Contact and company information is aggregated from publicly available sources (business directories, social profiles, corporate websites).
Query logging: Search queries are logged for service improvement and abuse prevention. No query data is shared with third parties.
Data compliance: Lessie follows applicable data protection regulations. Users are responsible for using retrieved contact data in compliance with local laws (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, etc.).
Privacy policy: https://lessie.ai/privacy
Terms of service: https://lessie.ai/terms-of-service

Authorization

CLI mode

Run lessie status to check token validity.
If authorized: false → run lessie auth to open browser for login.
After the user completes login, run lessie status again to confirm.

MCP mode

Call authorize to check connection status.
If already authorized → proceed to use tools directly.
If not authorized → authorize returns an authorization URL. Tell the user you need to open a browser for Lessie login/registration, and open it using the appropriate system command:
- macOS: open "<url>"
- Linux: xdg-open "<url>"
- Windows: start "<url>"
Tell the user the browser has been opened and they need to complete login/registration.
After the user confirms, call authorize again to verify the connection.
If authorization fails (timeout, denied, port conflict), follow the diagnostic hints returned by authorize and retry.

Always inform the user before opening the browser — never silently redirect.

Agent behavior rules

CRITICAL: Read references before first CLI call

Before executing any lessie CLI command for the first time in a session, you MUST read references/cli-reference.md to learn the exact parameter syntax. Do NOT guess parameter names — the CLI uses --filter with JSON, not --title/--company style flags.

Entity disambiguation

When a user mentions a company name that could refer to multiple entities (e.g., "Manus" could be Manus AI, Manus Bio, Manus Plus, etc.), disambiguate before searching:

Ask the user which company they mean, or present the top candidates and let them pick.
If context makes it unambiguous (e.g., user previously discussed AI agents), state your assumption and confirm: "你是指做 AI Agent 的 Manus AI (manus.im) 吗？"
Never silently assume one entity over another — wrong domain = wasted search credits and irrelevant results.

Tools overview

People

Tool	CLI command	When to use
`find_people`	`lessie find-people`	Discover people by title, company, location, seniority, audience. Default strategy is `hybrid`. If a request times out or fails, retry with `--strategy saas_only` — it's faster (~30s vs ~60s) and more stable, though recall may be lower
`enrich_people`	`lessie enrich-people`	Fill missing profile data for known individuals (email, phone, LinkedIn, work history)
`review_people`	`lessie review-people`	Deep-qualify ambiguous candidates via web research — skip for obvious matches/mismatches

# Find people — uses --filter with JSON, NOT --title/--company flags
lessie find-people \
  --filter '{"person_titles":["Engineering Manager"],"organization_domains":["stripe.com"]}' \
  --checkpoint 'EMs at Stripe' \
  --strategy hybrid \
  --target-count 10

# Enrich people — provide name + domain for best accuracy
lessie enrich-people \
  --people '[{"first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Altman","domain":"openai.com"}]'

# Review people — deep-qualify from a previous search
lessie review-people \
  --search-id 'mcp_xxx' \
  --person-ids '["id1","id2"]' \
  --checkpoints '[{"key":"Relevance","description":"...","title":"Relevance","category":"career"}]'

Companies

Tool	CLI command	When to use
`find_organizations`	`lessie find-orgs`	Discover companies by name, keyword, location, size, funding
`enrich_organization`	`lessie enrich-org`	Get full profile for known company domain(s) — industry, employees, funding, tech stack
`get_company_job_postings`	`lessie job-postings`	View active job openings (needs `organization_id` from enrich)
`search_company_news`	`lessie company-news`	Find recent news articles (needs `organization_id` from enrich)

# Find organizations
lessie find-orgs \
  --keyword-tags '["AI","SaaS"]' \
  --locations '["China"]' \
  --employees '["51,200"]'

# Enrich organization
lessie enrich-org --domains '["stripe.com"]'

# Job postings (needs org ID from enrich)
lessie job-postings --org-id '5f5e100...'

# Company news
lessie company-news --org-ids '["5f5e100..."]'

Web research

Tool	CLI command	When to use
`web_search`	`lessie web-search`	General web search; cached results make follow-up `web_fetch` free
`web_fetch`	`lessie web-fetch`	Extract specific info from a URL via AI summarization

# Web search
lessie web-search --query 'OpenAI official website' --count 5

# Web fetch
lessie web-fetch --url 'https://example.com' --instruction 'Extract job title and company'

Detailed references

CLI command examples & MCP calling: See references/cli-reference.md
Workflow patterns (domain resolution, company research, search+qualify): See references/workflow-patterns.md
Domain resolution decision tree: See references/domain-resolution.md

Key constraints

enrich_people / enrich_organization: max 10 per call; split larger lists into batches
find_people / find_organizations: paginated — use --page for more results
web_search caches page content; if a result has has_content: true, calling web_fetch on that URL is instant
Seniority levels: owner, founder, c_suite, partner, vp, head, director, manager, senior, entry, intern
For people enrichment, providing domain (company domain) alongside name greatly improves match accuracy
CLI output is JSON on stdout, status messages on stderr — parse stdout for data

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