How to Find Decision Makers at a Company (in Windsurf)

TL;DR

• You add LeadOcean to Windsurf once, then ask for the C-level and VP people at any company domain.
• It takes about 15 minutes the first time and about 5 after that.
• A full run spends 12 LeadOcean records: 10 for the search, 2 for enriching the people you pick. Counting is free.

Prerequisites

• A LeadOcean account. Start free: no card, 1,000 records one-off, work email required.
• Windsurf installed. The Windsurf MCP docs, October 2026, name no paid plan for remote HTTP servers. Enterprise users must turn MCP on in settings, and Teams have admin controls.
• Optional, for the script in Step 5: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY in your shell and curl.

You paste no API key into Windsurf. The MCP server uses OAuth sign-in.

Step 1: Add LeadOcean to Windsurf

Add one entry to the MCP config file and sign in. The full walkthrough, including Devin Local, is on Connect LeadOcean to Windsurf. The short version for Cascade:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "leadocean": {
      "serverUrl": "https://api.leadocean.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

In the Cascade panel, open the ... menu, then the Open MCP config file icon in the MCPs section. Paste the entry under mcpServers and save. Windsurf's docs say a remote HTTP server needs a serverUrl or url field. This file is for the legacy Cascade agent. Devin Local, the default agent for new tabs, reads MCP servers from the Devin CLI config instead.

Approve the sign-in in your browser. The server exposes 13 tools. Seven of them are free, and leadocean_count_leads is the one you use next.

Step 2: Size the decision makers before you pull anyone

Ask for a count first. Counting costs 0 records, so you can tune the filters as often as you like. Open a Cascade chat and send:

Use the leadocean MCP server only. How many C-Team and VP people in
Engineering are in the US? Count only. Do not pull anyone.

Cascade calls leadocean_count_leads with these arguments:

{
  "jobLevel": ["C-Team", "VP"],
  "jobFunction": ["Engineering"],
  "country": ["US"],
  "facets": false
}

The values are exact strings. If Cascade guesses one, tell it to call leadocean_list_enum_values first.

Step 3: Search one company by domain

Now point the same filters at one company. Use the domain, not the company name. Names match loosely, and a domain matches the employer exactly.

Use the leadocean MCP server only. Find decision makers at acme.com:
C-Team and VP level people. Call leadocean_search_leads with limit 10.
Show title, level and whether an email is on file. Do not enrich anyone yet.

The tool call looks like this:

{
  "domain": ["acme.com"],
  "jobLevel": ["C-Team", "VP"],
  "limit": 10
}

This spends up to 10 records, one per person returned. A small company returns fewer. Swap acme.com for your own target. Add jobFunction to narrow to one department, such as Engineering.

Step 4: Enrich the two people you want

Search rows carry a person_id. Enriching by that id is how you reach a person with no LinkedIn URL. Ask Cascade to enrich only the people you picked:

Enrich the CTO and the VP of Engineering from that list with
leadocean_get_lead using their person_id. Show the work email and its
email_status. Tell me how many records this call spent.

Each enrichment costs 1 record. A person we hold nothing for is a miss, and a miss costs nothing. Read email_status before you send anything. Bounced emails are not refunded.

Step 5: Run the same search from a script

Cascade calls the same API you can call yourself. Use this when you want the list in a file instead of a chat. The search is a flat JSON body, and filters are arrays.

curl -s -X POST https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"domain": ["acme.com"], "jobLevel": ["C-Team", "VP"], "limit": 10}'

Enrich one person with the id from the search row:

curl -s -X POST https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"person_id": "1234567890", "reveal_email": true}'

Enrich takes exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id. To list everyone we hold at a company instead, use GET /v1/companies/acme.com/people, which bills one record per person returned.

What you get

The count in Step 2 is a live result. We ran it on 2026-10-21 through the LeadOcean MCP server (trimmed):

{
  "total": 81869,
  "totalIsExact": true,
  "totalAll": 194025,
  "distinctCompanies": 43418,
  "credits": 0,
  "defaults": "Counted only addresses worth sending to (emailStatus: verified or catch_all_valid or catch_all), which is this tool's default."
}

That is 81,869 mailable C-Team and VP engineering leaders in the US, with a verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all email. It cost 0 records. With no email condition the same filters match 194,025 people.

For one company, the people come back in the response shape from the API reference. These are placeholder values, not a real person:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "profile_data": { /* name, title, company for Jane Doe at acme.com */ },
      "contact_data": {
        "has_email": true,
        "has_phone": true,
        "email_status": "verified",
        "email_type": "work"
      },
      "meta": { "source_ids": { "person_id": "1234567890" } }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "count": 1, "nextCursor": null }
}

Search shows flags such as has_email, not the address. Enrich with reveal_email set to true returns contact_emails and contact_phones, a phone looking like +1 415 555 0133, at no extra record.

Troubleshooting

FAQ