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Zendesk is a customer service platform for support tickets, customer records, and a self-serve help center. The Zendesk connector lets your Lovable app read and manage your Zendesk Support account through the Zendesk API. Zendesk is available as an app + chat connector: one shared connection that works in the project chat while you build and in your published apps. With Zendesk, your app can:
  • List, search, and read tickets and their comments
  • Create tickets from forms and reply to tickets with public comments or internal notes
  • Look up users and organizations and create end users
  • Read help center categories, sections, and articles
  • Follow ticket changes over time with incremental exports
  • Receive ticket events through Zendesk webhooks
Zendesk is a good fit when your team runs support in Zendesk and wants a custom Lovable app for reporting, customer-facing intake, or agent tooling that Zendesk’s own interface does not offer.

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Common use cases and example apps

These examples show what you can build with Zendesk, each with a prompt to start from.

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How to connect Zendesk

Who can create Zendesk connections depends on your plan and workspace settings. App + chat connectors are available by default on Free, Pro, and Business plans. On Enterprise plans, they are effectively disabled at first: Who can create connections and clients defaults to No one until an admin changes it in Connectors → Admin settings → App + chat connectors. When adding a connection, you can choose between:
  • Use your own OAuth app: authorize an OAuth client you create in Zendesk Admin Center. Access is limited to the scopes you approve, and you can revoke it from Zendesk at any time. Use this option for new connections.
  • Use your own credentials: connect with an existing Zendesk API token and the email of a Zendesk agent. The connection acts as that agent. Zendesk is removing API tokens, so this option is for tokens you already have.
You can create multiple Zendesk connections using different Zendesk accounts, OAuth clients, or API tokens, which is useful for separating environments (for example, a sandbox and your production account) or giving different teams different permissions. When the connection is created, you can link it to the projects where you want to use it. Anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in chat to link their project to it.

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Prerequisites

Before connecting Zendesk, make sure you have:
  • A Zendesk Support account, and admin access to its Admin Center for creating OAuth clients
  • Your Zendesk subdomain, the first part of your Zendesk address (mycompany for https://mycompany.zendesk.com). If your Zendesk address uses your own domain, find the subdomain on the Admin Center home page.
  • Permission to create connections in your Lovable workspace (see Who can create connections and clients)
All API requests made through this connector count toward your Zendesk plan’s rate limits. Billing and quota are handled directly by Zendesk, not Lovable.
Follow the setup steps below based on how you want to connect Zendesk.
Use this option for new connections. Zendesk is removing API tokens. In the connection form, this option is labeled Use your own OAuth app.

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Step 1: Create a Zendesk OAuth client

The connector authenticates through an OAuth client in your own Zendesk account, so you need its client ID and client secret before connecting.To create a Zendesk OAuth client:
1

Open the OAuth clients page

Sign in to Zendesk as an admin. In Admin Center, open Apps and integrations → APIs → OAuth clients.
2

Add an OAuth client

Click Add OAuth client. Give it a name your team recognizes, for example Lovable, and set Client kind to Confidential.
3

Set the redirect URL

In Redirect URLs, add exactly:
The connection form in Lovable shows the same value in a Redirect URI card with a copy button. If the redirect URL does not match exactly, Zendesk rejects the authorization.
4

Choose the scopes the client may request

Leave Scopes empty to allow all scopes. To limit the client, select each scope that you plan to select in Lovable. A scope you select in Lovable but not here fails the authorization with an invalid_scope error.
5

Save and copy the credentials

Click Save. Copy the Identifier, which is the client ID, and the Secret. Zendesk shows the full secret only once. Then click Save again.
Your client secret functions like a password. Keep it secure and never share it publicly. You need it in the next step.
See Zendesk documentation for more: Using OAuth authentication with your application.

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Step 2: Connect Zendesk to Lovable

With your client ID and secret ready, add the connection in Lovable.
1

Open Zendesk in Connectors

Open Connectors and select Zendesk. For the other places to open the catalog from, see Where to find connectors.
2

Add a connection

Click Add connection and select App + chat connector. The form is split into collapsible sections, Details, Configure connection, and Sharing.
3

Name the connection

Under Details, Lovable fills in a name for the connection, which you can change. The name is only used inside Lovable to identify the connection.
4

Choose Use your own OAuth app

Under Configure connection, select Use your own OAuth app.
5

Configure the connection

Still under Configure connection, enter:
  1. Zendesk subdomain: the first part of your Zendesk address, for example mycompany for https://mycompany.zendesk.com. Pasting the full address also works.
  2. Client ID: the Identifier of your OAuth client.
  3. Client secret: the secret Zendesk showed when you saved the client.
6

Review scopes (optional)

Under Scopes, review the permissions the connection requests. Ticket read and write, user read, organization read, and help center read are selected by default.
Every scope you select must also be allowed on your Zendesk OAuth client, unless its Scopes field is empty. Otherwise Zendesk rejects the authorization with an invalid_scope error.
For full scope documentation, see Zendesk’s scope reference.
7

Choose who can use this connection

Under Sharing, the connection is private to you by default and shows a Private label. To share it, click Share with others. Then add workspace members by email, or click Invite entire workspace to make the connection available to everyone in your Lovable workspace.See Who can use connections and clients for more information.
8

Connect to Zendesk and authorize

Click Connect. The Zendesk authorization window opens, so make sure your browser doesn’t block pop-ups. If it does, Lovable redirects you instead.Sign in to Zendesk if prompted, review the requested permissions, and authorize the app.You’ll be redirected back to Lovable with a confirmation.
Lovable does not check the client ID and secret when you click Connect. If the client ID or the redirect URL is wrong, Zendesk shows an error in the authorization window. If the secret is wrong, the connection fails after you authorize.
When connected, anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in chat to link their project to Zendesk (based on configured connection-level access). Your Lovable apps can then read and manage tickets, users, organizations, and help center content.

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Working with Zendesk data and webhooks

Each connection represents one Zendesk identity: the user who authorized the OAuth client, limited to the scopes you approved, or the Zendesk agent whose email you entered with an API token. Every request your app makes runs with that identity’s permissions, and Zendesk applies its rate limits per account, so ask Lovable to cache results and read on demand rather than polling in a loop. If your app needs to react to ticket changes, ask Lovable to build a public endpoint that verifies Zendesk’s webhook signature and stores each delivery. You then register that endpoint as a webhook in Admin Center → Apps and integrations → Webhooks → Webhooks and fire it from a trigger. Lovable tells you which address to register while the app is unpublished and after you publish it. When prompting Lovable, be specific about the records and operations your app needs. For example, mention whether the app should list tickets, reply to them, create tickets from a form, look up requesters, or search help center articles.

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Limitations

The Zendesk connector cannot:
  • Support per-end-user Zendesk login. Each connection represents a single Zendesk account shared across all projects linked to it.
If Zendesk authorization is revoked from the Zendesk side, you’ll need to reconnect the integration in Lovable before API calls can succeed again.

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Troubleshooting

Requests fail with 403. The connection lacks permission for that endpoint. For an OAuth connection, open the connection and select the missing scope under Configure connection. If your Zendesk OAuth client limits its scopes, allow the scope there too. Then click Reconnect. For an API token connection, grant that agent the permission in Zendesk. Retrying without a change does not help. The connection shows a Token expired badge. OAuth connections hold a refresh token that Zendesk expires after 90 days without use. Click Reconnect on the connection and authorize again. Requests on an API token connection fail with 401. The token is deactivated or deleted in Zendesk. Create a connection with an OAuth client. Requests fail with 429. Your app exceeded Zendesk’s per-minute rate limit for your plan, or the per-project usage limit of Lovable’s connector gateway. Both return a Retry-After header with the number of seconds to wait. Ask Lovable to honor that header, cache reads, or fetch less frequently.

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Manage your Zendesk connection

Connections are managed from Connectors: select Zendesk, then open the connection.
  • Unlink projects to remove Zendesk access from specific projects while keeping the connection available for others. See Unlink projects from a connection for the steps.
  • Delete the connection to remove it from the workspace entirely. Deleting is permanent. It removes the credentials from all linked projects, and app features that use Zendesk stop working until a new connection is added. See Delete a connection for the steps and who can delete.