Connect AliExpress to Gemini CLI via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → AliExpress Seller, paste the app key and secret, click Authorize and sign in with the shop's seller account, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

AliExpress Seller + Gemini

Let your AI run your AliExpress shop: orders and delivery addresses, shipment declarations with your own carrier, products with prices and stock, categories, disputes and settlement statements. Uses your own seller app on the AliExpress Open Platform.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

ALIEXPRESS_SELLER_APP_KEY, ALIEXPRESS_SELLER_APP_SECRET

Step 1 — Get credentials

What you need: an AliExpress seller account, a developer account on the AliExpress Open Platform and an app of your own in the category Seller-inhouse Developer. AliExpress reviews the developer profile and has to approve that app category before the app can be created: nobody but AliExpress can speed this up, and it can refuse. Its Chinese FAQ names 2 to 5 working days for the developer review; no time is given for the category.

1. At https://openservice.aliexpress.com click Create Account (or sign in). Then complete your profile under your user ID, Profile: choose the developer type, fill in the fields and upload the documents AliExpress asks for. AliExpress reviews the profile.
2. Open the App Console and click Create. In the list of app categories click Apply on Seller-inhouse Developer (for an AliExpress seller who builds an app for their own use), write why you need it in the Reason field and click OK. The category shows Pending until AliExpress approves it, then Active. Only one app can be created per category.
3. On the approved category click Create App. Enter an app name and, as callback URL, the address of this server followed by /api/iop-auth/callback (on AnythingMCP Cloud: https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/api/iop-auth/callback), then click Submit.
4. Click APP Overview, then Manage on your app. Copy the App Key into ALIEXPRESS_SELLER_APP_KEY. Under Basic Information click View and copy the App Secret into ALIEXPRESS_SELLER_APP_SECRET.
5. On the same page look at API Permission Group: a group marked Inactive has to be requested with Apply and a reason before its APIs answer.
6. Under App Console, App Management, Auth Management enter the seller account of your shop in the seller authorization whitelist and submit. A self-developed app can bind up to 50 shops, and only shops that are legally related to the developer: the same company, parent and subsidiary, the same parent company, or the same legal representative or majority shareholder.
7. On the connector page click Authorize. AliExpress shows its sign-in page: select the country, enter the seller account and password of the shop and click Sign in And Authorize. You come back to AnythingMCP on your own.

Token lifetime: AnythingMCP keeps the access token and the refresh token encrypted, reads how long they last from the answer of AliExpress (expires_in and refresh_expires_in, in seconds) and renews the access token by itself. A renewal brings a new refresh token but does not move the end date of the refresh token. When that date is reached (or AliExpress answers refresh_expires_in 0), click Authorize again. The Auth Management page shows the durations of your app; the Chinese guide of AliExpress names 365 days for the access token and 730 days for the refresh token of a self-developed seller app.

How it signs: every call goes to /sync with the API name in method, plus app_key, access_token, a millisecond timestamp, sign_method=sha256 and sign, the upper-case HMAC-SHA256 of all parameters sorted by name, keyed with the App Secret. The secret never leaves AnythingMCP.

Where to start

• The shop: aliexpress_seller_get_seller_profile (seller id, country, quotation currency, product counts) and aliexpress_seller_get_shop_info (shop id, name and URL).
• Orders: aliexpress_seller_list_orders with order_status WAIT_SELLER_SEND_GOODS lists what has to be shipped; aliexpress_seller_get_order gives amounts, sub-orders and tracking; aliexpress_seller_get_order_receipt_info the delivery address.
• Shipping with your own carrier: aliexpress_seller_list_order_shipping_services says per sub-order whether it ships with your own carrier (DBS) or with platform logistics; aliexpress_seller_list_shipment_providers gives the provider codes; aliexpress_seller_declare_shipment sends carrier and tracking number to AliExpress and costs nothing; aliexpress_seller_modify_shipment corrects it (twice at most, within ten days). aliexpress_seller_list_packages shows the packages and their status.
• Platform logistics (switched off at install, because they order a logistics service for the shop): aliexpress_seller_list_seller_addresses for the pickup address, aliexpress_seller_pack_order to create the package, aliexpress_seller_ship_platform_package to hand it over, aliexpress_seller_cancel_package to undo a package. Printing the waybill is not included: AliExpress returns it as a file inside the answer, print it from the seller centre.
• Products: aliexpress_seller_list_products by status, aliexpress_seller_get_product with every SKU, aliexpress_seller_update_prices and aliexpress_seller_update_stock by sku_code, aliexpress_seller_set_products_online, and aliexpress_seller_set_products_offline (switched off). Posting, editing and deleting products are not included.
• Catalogue settings: aliexpress_seller_list_categories, aliexpress_seller_list_publishable_categories and aliexpress_seller_list_freight_templates.
• Disputes: aliexpress_seller_list_disputes and aliexpress_seller_get_dispute are reads. aliexpress_seller_accept_dispute_solution is switched off: accepting a proposal is binding and can refund the buyer.
• Money: aliexpress_seller_list_settlement_bills lists the settlement statements. The connector never pays, refunds or withdraws by itself.

Ids and formats

• Order, sub-order, product and dispute ids are long numbers: pass them as text, digits only. The sub-order id (child_id in the order list, id in child_order_list of an order) is what the shipping tools call tradeOrderItemId.
• Order times are US Pacific Time, written yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss. Package and dispute filters take Unix time in milliseconds. Settlement periods are written YYYY/MM/dd, their release dates are Unix milliseconds.
• Amounts are objects with amount (a decimal string) and currency_code; prices you send are decimal strings in the currency of the product.
• Lists page from 1: orders and disputes up to 50 per page, packages up to 50, products fewer than 100. Price and stock updates take at most 20 products with 200 SKUs each.
• order_status FINISH covers completed and closed orders alike, and is only returned when asked for. endReason in the extend_map of its sub-orders tells them apart.

Answers and errors: results sit under aliexpress_..._response (the API name with underscores). Many calls answer 200 and carry their own verdict inside: result.success with errorCode and errorMessage (or error_code and error_message), update_success with update_failed_list for price and stock updates. Always read it before telling the user a write worked. Refusals of the gateway come as error_response with a code: IllegalAccessToken when the authorization ended (AnythingMCP renews the token once and retries), InvalidAppkey or IncompleteSignature when key and secret do not match, InsufficientPermission when the app lacks the API permission group, and a call limit code when the quota of the app category is used up.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Gemini

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Gemini CLI reads MCP servers from ~/.gemini/settings.json (on Windows %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\settings.json). Add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "httpUrl": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Create an MCP API key in AnythingMCP under MCP Servers → your server → API keys, and paste it in place of YOUR_MCP_API_KEY.
2. Save the file and restart gemini.
3. Run /mcp inside Gemini CLI (or gemini mcp list in your shell) — anythingmcp should show as connected.
4. Start prompting — Gemini CLI can now call the AliExpress Seller tools.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Which AliExpress orders are waiting for me to ship?"
• "Declare the shipment of order 8187654321098765 with Cainiao tracking LP00123456789012."
• "Which disputes are open, and what do the buyers ask for?"
• "Set the stock of SKU AE-CASE-14-BLK to 300 and the price to 4.99 USD."
• "Show last month's settlement statements."

FAQ

Do I paste an access token? No. You paste the App Key and App Secret of your Seller-inhouse Developer app, add the shop to the app's seller whitelist, and click Authorize on the connector page. AliExpress's sign-in page asks for the shop's seller account, and the connector keeps and renews the tokens itself.

What does it cover, and what not? Orders and delivery addresses, shipment declarations with your own carrier, packages, products with prices and stock, categories, freight templates, disputes and settlement statements. Posting or editing products and buyer messages are not covered.

Which tools install switched off? The platform logistics tools (aliexpress_seller_pack_order, aliexpress_seller_ship_platform_package, aliexpress_seller_cancel_package), aliexpress_seller_set_products_offline and aliexpress_seller_accept_dispute_solution. Switch them on on the connector page only if the AI should use them.

Where does Gemini CLI look for MCP servers? In ~/.gemini/settings.json for your user, or in .gemini/settings.json inside a project. gemini mcp list shows each server and whether it connects.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude