Inviting people

For admins and org owners: this guide covers the two kinds of invite the product has, how to send each one from the web app, the vn CLI, and an MCP client, and what the person on the other end sees.

Which invite do you need

There are two different things called an invite, and they solve two different problems.

You want to	Use	Who can send it
Let someone without a gatech.edu address into the network at all	A network invite code	A network admin
Add a member of the network to a specific organization	An org invitation	An owner or admin of that org

A gatech.edu address never needs a code. It becomes an active member on its own once the email is verified. Everyone else signs up with a code, or signs up without one and waits for an admin to approve them.

Network invite codes

A code looks like VN-5LTU-ZXTM. It has a maximum number of uses, an optional note saying who it is for, and an optional expiry. Someone signing up enters it in the “Invite code” field on the sign-in page and becomes an active member as soon as their email is verified.

From the terminal

With the CLI installed and signed in, create the code:

vn login --api-url https://venturenetwork.ai
vn admin invites create --max-uses 5 --note "Fall 2026 cohort"

The command prints the code, its maximum uses, and its expiry. Add --expires-in-days 30 to make it expire. Without that flag it never does. The maximum uses default to one, so a code for a whole cohort needs --max-uses set to the size of the cohort.

From an MCP client

Connect a client to the server, accept the “Manage members and invites” scope on the consent screen, then ask the client to call create_invite with the maximum uses, a note, and the days until expiry. list_invites shows the codes that exist. With Claude Code the connection is one command:

claude mcp add --transport http venture-network https://venturenetwork.ai/mcp

A client connected before the admin scope existed has to reconnect once to see it.

From the web

There is no invite code screen in the web app yet. Use the CLI or an MCP client.

Approving instead of inviting

Someone who signed up without a code is waiting in the pending list. vn admin members --status pending shows who, vn admin approve <email> lets one of them in, and the MCP tools list_members and approve_member do the same. See Members for the full picture.

Org invitations

An org invitation is an email to one address with a link that adds that person to one organization in one role. It is single use, it expires (14 days by default), and only the address it was sent to can accept it. The person has to be a member of the network already, or become one on the way in, because accepting requires signing in.

From the web

1. Open the org, for example https://venturenetwork.ai/o/gt-venture-network.
2. Choose “Manage”, or open the Settings tab, then the Invitations tab.
3. Enter the email address, choose the role, set the expiry in days, and choose “Send invitation”.

The invitation appears in the list below the form while it is pending, with a “Revoke” control if it was sent by mistake. Inviting someone as an admin of the org is limited to the org’s owners. Owners and admins can both invite members.

From the terminal, an MCP client, or the API

vn orgs invite gt-venture-network [email protected] --role member --expires-in-days 14
vn orgs invitations gt-venture-network
vn orgs revoke gt-venture-network <id>

vn orgs invite sends the invitation and prints its expiry. --role defaults to member (admin is owner only, same as the web and the API). --expires-in-days defaults to 14. vn orgs invitations lists the organization’s invitations, newest first, one line per invitation. vn orgs revoke revokes a pending invitation by its id, which the list command prints.

An MCP client authenticated as an owner or admin of the org can call invite_to_org (needs network:write), list_org_invitations (needs network:read), and revoke_org_invitation (needs network:write) the same way.

POST /v1/orgs/{slug}/invitations with email, role, and expiresInDays, authenticated as an owner or admin of the org, does the same over the API directly. The full schema is at the orgs reference, or the live Scalar reference at https://venturenetwork.ai/docs.

What the invitee sees

An email from Venture Network <[email protected]> with a link to https://venturenetwork.ai/invite/<token>. Opening it asks them to sign in if they are not, then adds them to the org and lands them on its page. If something is wrong the page says so in one line: the invitation is not valid, it has expired, or it was sent to a different address than the one they signed in with. A fresh invitation fixes all three.

Becoming an admin

Network admins are ordinary members with the admin role. An existing admin grants it with vn admin promote <email> or the MCP tool set_member_role, and takes it back with vn admin demote <email>. Nobody can change their own role.

Org roles are separate. An org owner sets them from the Members tab of the org’s settings, and only an owner can make someone an owner or admin of the org. An org always keeps at least one owner.

Setting up the CLI

Install vn from npm with npm install -g @venturenetwork/cli, then sign in with vn login --api-url https://venturenetwork.ai. The --api-url is only needed on that first sign-in, since it is saved to your config. See The CLI for the install steps and the everyday commands.