MCP & Connectors — Agent Reference

How to connect Claude and AI agents to third-party apps via MCP servers — Gmail, Notion, GitHub, Slack, and more.

How do you connect Claude to Gmail via MCP?

To connect Claude to Gmail via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), add the official Google Gmail MCP server configuration to your...

Last verified: July 2026

What is the MCP server URL format for Claude connectors?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) uses Server-Sent Events (SSE) for HTTP transport, where the client establishes a SSE connectio...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you authenticate MCP connectors in Claude.ai?

In local environments, MCP servers authenticate via environment variables passed directly in the server config file. For remote...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to Notion via MCP?

Connect Claude to your Notion workspace by registering a new internal integration inside the Notion Developer Portal to obtain ...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to GitHub via MCP?

To connect Claude to GitHub, generate a Personal Access Token (Classic or Fine-Grained) on GitHub with access to your target re...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to Slack via MCP?

To connect Claude to Slack via MCP, create a Slack App in your workspace API settings, configure Bot User OAuth Tokens with rea...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to Google Drive via MCP?

To connect Claude to Google Drive, enable the Google Drive API in the Google Cloud Console, create OAuth 2.0 credentials, and p...

Last verified: July 2026

What MCP servers does Claude.ai support natively?

Claude.ai (web interface) supports a selected set of official remote connectors natively, including Google Drive, Gmail, Notion...

Last verified: July 2026

Can you use multiple MCP servers in one Claude session?

Yes, Claude can connect to and query multiple MCP servers concurrently in a single chat session. The client merges all tools, p...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you build a custom MCP server for Claude?

To build a custom MCP server for Claude, use the official TypeScript or Python SDK, define the schemas for the tools, resources...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to PostgreSQL via MCP?

To connect Claude to a PostgreSQL database, configure the postgres MCP server in your Claude Desktop configuration file and pas...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to SQLite via MCP?

To connect Claude to SQLite, add the sqlite MCP server definition in the configuration file, specifying the absolute filepath t...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to Brave Search via MCP?

To connect Claude to Brave Search, retrieve a Brave Search API key from the developer portal, and configure the brave-search MC...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you connect Claude to Linear via MCP?

To connect Claude to Linear, generate an API access token in your Linear account developer settings and configure the official ...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you inspect and debug MCP servers using MCP Inspector?

Use the official @modelcontextprotocol/inspector command-line interface tool to inspect capabilities, send test requests, and v...

Last verified: July 2026

What transport protocols are supported by MCP?

MCP supports two standard transport protocols: stdio (Standard Input/Output) for local sub-processes, and Server-Sent Events (S...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you configure Server-Sent Events (SSE) transport for MCP?

To configure SSE transport on an MCP server, instantiate an SSEServerTransport on your HTTP server routing layer to dispatch ev...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you configure standard input/output (stdio) transport for MCP?

To run an MCP server on stdio transport, connect it using StdioServerTransport from the SDK. The host process will spawn the se...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you configure MCP servers in Claude Desktop?

Open your local OS-specific configuration path and edit the JSON-formatted configuration file to define your stdio or remote MC...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you sandbox MCP server execution for security?

To sandbox local MCP servers, run the processes in docker container environments, isolate the network using minimal networking ...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you handle timeout errors in MCP server calls?

In your client connector code, wrap requests in timeout wrappers that reject after a threshold (e.g., 60 seconds) and ensure yo...

Last verified: July 2026

Can multiple agent instances share a single MCP server connection?

While stdio sub-processes are strictly single-client, a remote MCP server using Server-Sent Events (SSE) transport can handle m...

Last verified: July 2026

Does MCP support dynamic server discovery and registration?

Yes, MCP supports discovery via client polling of capabilities, but active runtime server insertion depends on the agent framew...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you add an MCP server to Cursor?

To add an MCP server to Cursor, navigate to Cursor Settings > Features > MCP, click + Add New MCP Server, choose the transport ...

Last verified: July 2026

How do you view and debug logs for MCP servers?

In stdio MCP servers, route logs to stderr using console.error() instead of console.log(). In Claude Desktop, inspect logs at ~...

Last verified: July 2026

Common questions

How do you connect Claude to Gmail via MCP?

To connect Claude to Gmail via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), add the official Google Gmail MCP server configuration to your Claude Desktop configuration file. Authenticate by creating a client credential via the Google Cloud Console and running the initial OAuth consent flow.

What is the MCP server URL format for Claude connectors?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) uses Server-Sent Events (SSE) for HTTP transport, where the client establishes a SSE connection to a GET endpoint (e.g. http://localhost:3000/sse) and sends JSON-RPC client-to-server messages via POST requests to a separate endpoint declared by the server.

How do you authenticate MCP connectors in Claude.ai?

In local environments, MCP servers authenticate via environment variables passed directly in the server config file. For remote, network-based MCP servers using Server-Sent Events (SSE), authentication is handled via Bearer tokens in the HTTP Authorization headers or customized query parameters.

How do you connect Claude to Notion via MCP?

Connect Claude to your Notion workspace by registering a new internal integration inside the Notion Developer Portal to obtain an integration token, granting workspace access permissions, and configuring the official Notion MCP server in your Claude Desktop configuration.

How do you connect Claude to GitHub via MCP?

To connect Claude to GitHub, generate a Personal Access Token (Classic or Fine-Grained) on GitHub with access to your target repositories, and add the official GitHub MCP server configuration to your local Claude Desktop config file.