Introduction
Everything you can automate in Lancer, in one place.
Lancer finds Upwork jobs that match your campaigns, decides which ones are worth bidding on, writes the proposals, and submits them. New to Lancer or fuzzy on the concepts? Start with How Lancer works.
Most people run Lancer entirely from the web app, but everything important is also available programmatically. These docs cover the two surfaces you can build on:
MCP server
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or any MCP client and let your AI agent configure and run Lancer: knowledge base, campaigns, cover letters, inbox, and pipeline.
External modes
Flip a campaign to an external mode and Lancer streams jobs to your system over webhooks: only the ones its AI rated suitable (External proposal), or every filter match (External decision & proposal). You write the proposal, and in the second mode decide too, through the API. Lancer still handles the Upwork submission.
Which surface do you need?
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| Set up or optimize Lancer by chatting with an AI agent | MCP server |
| Write your own proposals for the jobs Lancer screens, or pull every matching job into your own system and control every bid | The external modes, which pair webhooks with the API |
| Get notified in your own tooling when something happens | Webhooks, usable on any campaign |
| Submit a bid or reject a lead from a script | The API |
Requirements
- A Lancer account with an organization. Sign up at lancer.app.
- An active subscription or trial. The Public API and webhooks require a paid plan; the MCP server works during trials too.
- For anything that touches Upwork, at least one connected Upwork account (called a bidder account) in your organization.
Base URLs
| Surface | URL |
|---|---|
| Web app | https://1.lancer.app |
| API and MCP host | https://api.lancer.app |
| MCP endpoint | https://api.lancer.app/mcp |
| Public API (external modes) | https://api.lancer.app/v1 |
Built for AI agents
Every page has a Copy Markdown button next to its title, ready to paste into any AI assistant. For agents that fetch URLs themselves, append .md to any page URL for raw markdown, or use https://docs.lancer.app/llms.txt (an index of every page) and https://docs.lancer.app/llms-full.txt (the entire documentation as one markdown file).