Summarize Zendesk tickets with AI

When working on support, you often need quick, structured summaries of a ticket for internal handoffs or customer updates.
In this guide, we will set up a prompt in Port so that any AI tool that supports the prompt feature of the MCP protocol can help you summarize Zendesk tickets with all the relevant context.

Common use cases

Generate a concise, standardized ticket summary for internal handoffs.
Produce a customer-facing summary capturing request, resolution, and root cause.
Create quick recaps for weekly reviews or QA of support interactions.

Scenario

You’re the on-call support engineer. A customer requests the ability to set labels for tickets on Zendesk ticket 4095. Before hand-off, you need a concise internal summary and a customer-facing version.

Example context snippets the prompt will fetch:

Ticket subject: Add the ability to set labels for tickets

Recent comments
- 2025-08-13 13:12: Customer: "I want the ability to set labels for tickets"
- 2025-08-13 13:16: Agent: "Thanks for reaching out! Can you share a bit more about how you’d like to use these labels?"

Example output from the prompt:

Flow overview

Developer runs the reusable zendesk_ticket_summary prompt with ticket_id
Prompt uses actions to fetch comments and side conversations → returns a structured summary

Prerequisites

Port remote MCP installed and connected in your IDE (Cursor, Claude, etc.). Follow the setup guide: Port MCP Server - Setup
A Port account and have completed the onboarding process.
Custom integration to ingest Zendesk tickets using Port webhooks.

Add Secrets

The actions in this guide authenticate to Zendesk using a secret that stores your API token, enabling them to retrieve ticket comments and side-conversation data. You can generate an API token by following Zendesk’s instructions here.

To add the secret to your portal:

Click on the ... button in the top right corner of your Port application.
Click on Credentials.
Click on the Secrets tab.
Click on + Secret and add the following secrets:
- ZENDESK_TOKEN - Your Zendesk API token generated according to the guide.

Set up self-service actions

Zendesk tickets consist of two main sources:

Comments – the primary conversation between the requester and agents (public or internal).
Side conversations – separate threaded discussions (email, Slack, etc.) opened from the ticket for additional stakeholders.

The self-service actions you’ll create below retrieve both comments and side-conversation messages, ensuring the prompt has the complete context before generating a summary.

Get Ticket Comments

This action fetches all comments for the Zendesk ticket identified by the entity identifier.

Go to the self-service page of your portal.
Click on + New Action.
Click on the {...} Edit JSON button.

Copy and paste the following JSON configuration:

Action: Get Ticket Comments (Click to expand)

{
    "identifier": "get_ticket_comments",
    "title": "get ticket comments",
    "trigger": {
        "type": "self-service",
        "operation": "DAY-2",
        "userInputs": {
        "properties": {},
        "required": [],
        "order": []
        },
        "blueprintIdentifier": "zendesk_ticket"
    },
    "invocationMethod": {
        "type": "WEBHOOK",
        "url": "https://<your_subdomain>.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ .entity.identifier }}/comments",
        "agent": false,
        "synchronized": true,
        "method": "GET",
        "headers": {
            "Content-Type": "application/json",
            "Authorization": "Basic {{ .secrets.ZENDESK_TOKEN }}"
        },
        "body": {}
    },
    "requiredApproval": false
}

Click Save.

Get Ticket Side Conversations

This action lists all side conversations for the Zendesk ticket.

Go to the self-service page of your portal.
Click on + New Action.
Click on the {...} Edit JSON button.

Copy and paste the following JSON configuration:

Action: Get Ticket Side Conversations (Click to expand)

{
    "identifier": "get_ticket_side_conversation",
    "title": "get ticket side conversations",
    "trigger": {
        "type": "self-service",
        "operation": "DAY-2",
        "userInputs": {
        "properties": {},
        "required": [],
        "order": []
        },
        "blueprintIdentifier": "zendesk_ticket"
    },
    "invocationMethod": {
        "type": "WEBHOOK",
        "url": "https://<your_subdomain>.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ .entity.identifier }}/side_conversations",
        "agent": false,
        "synchronized": true,
        "method": "GET",
        "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Authorization": "Basic {{ .secrets.ZENDESK_TOKEN }}"
        },
        "body": {}
    },
    "requiredApproval": false
}

Click Save.

Get Side Conversation Messages

This action retrieves the messages for a specific side conversation using its URL.

Go to the self-service page of your portal.
Click on + New Action.
Click on the {...} Edit JSON button.

Copy and paste the following JSON configuration:

Action: Get Side Conversation Messages (Click to expand)

{
    "identifier": "get_side_conversation_messages",
    "title": "get side conversation messages",
    "trigger": {
        "type": "self-service",
        "operation": "DAY-2",
        "userInputs": {
            "properties": {
                "side_conversation_url": {
                "type": "string",
                "title": "side conversation url",
                "format": "url"
                }
            },
            "required": [
                "side_conversation_url"
            ],
            "order": [
                "side_conversation_url"
            ]
        }
    },
    "invocationMethod": {
        "type": "WEBHOOK",
        "url": "{{ .inputs.side_conversation_url }}/events",
        "agent": false,
        "synchronized": true,
        "method": "GET",
        "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Authorization": "Basic {{ .secrets.ZENDESK_TOKEN }}"
        },
        "body": {}
    },
    "requiredApproval": false
}

Click Save.

Subdomain flexibility

Replace <your_subdomain> with your Zendesk subdomain, for example: https://acme.zendesk.com/....

Create a reusable prompt

We will now define a prompt entity that your IDE can invoke via Port MCP. Once created, you can run it with the ticket ID, and it will gather context and produce a structured summary.

Go to the Prompts page in Port.
Click Create prompt.
Toggle JSON mode.

Paste the following JSON and adjust if needed.

Prompt entity: Zendesk Ticket Summary (Click to expand)

{
    "identifier": "zendesk_ticket_summary",
    "title": "Zendesk Ticket Summary",
    "icon": "AI",
    "properties": {
        "description": "Summarize a Zendesk support ticket using comments and side conversations",
        "arguments": [
            {
                "name": "ticket_id",
                "required": true,
                "description": "The Zendesk ticket ID to summarize"
            }
        ],
        "template": "You are an AI assistant tasked with summarizing Zendesk support tickets in Port. Use the comments and the side conversations on the ticket to summarize it in the following format:\n\n## Request\nWhat the customer wanted in a short sentence\n\n## Resolution  \nWhat was the resolution\n\n## Root Cause\nIn case of a problem/bug, what was the root cause\n\n## Recommendations\nE.g., update docs, improve error messages, etc.\n\nInstructions for data gathering:\n- To get the comments and side conversations, send empty properties and use the entity identifier: {{ticket_id}}\n- To use the side conversations, you first need to get their URLs and then get the messages sent in them\n- No need to send an entity identifier for side conversation messages, only the side conversation URL in the properties\n\nTicket ID to analyze: {{ticket_id}}"
    },
    "relations": {}
}

Click Create.

Test the workflow

In Port, make sure there is a zendesk_ticket entity whose identifier matches a real Zendesk ticket ID you want to summarize.
In your IDE assistant, choose Port MCP as the provider as described here.
Run the zendesk_ticket_summary prompt with ticket_id set to that Zendesk ticket ID.
The assistant will automatically execute the self-service actions to fetch comments and side conversations, then return a structured summary.

Internal-only content

Summaries can include sensitive customer or internal details, so treat them as internal documents.

Using Port MCP prompts

For setup and capabilities, see the Port MCP Server prompts documentation: Port MCP Server - Prompts

Best practices

Adjust the prompt to how you’d ideally want to receive a ticket summary—whether that’s a short bullet list or a detailed customer-facing recap.
Extend the prompt with specific preferences, such as ignoring non-informative system/autoresponder comments or highlighting key fields.
Use consistent formatting so summaries are scannable across tickets.
Consider variants: internal vs customer-facing tone; enforce English or match ticket locale.

Common use cases​

Scenario​

Flow overview​

Prerequisites​

Add Secrets​

Set up self-service actions​

Get Ticket Comments​

Get Ticket Side Conversations​

Get Side Conversation Messages​

Create a reusable prompt​

Test the workflow​

Best practices​

Common use cases

Scenario

Flow overview

Prerequisites

Add Secrets

Set up self-service actions

Get Ticket Comments

Get Ticket Side Conversations

Get Side Conversation Messages

Create a reusable prompt

Test the workflow

Best practices