docs-mintlify/admin/ai/mcp-connectors.mdx
MCP Connectors is currently in preview, and the user experience may still change. Reach out to the Cube support team to activate this feature for your account.
</Warning>MCP Connectors let the agent use tools from external services. An administrator connects an external MCP server — such as Notion, Linear, Sentry, or Attio — and its tools become available to the agent in Analytics Chat. The agent can then search a Notion workspace, file a Linear issue, look up a Sentry error, or call any tool a connected server exposes, alongside the data it queries from your semantic model.
<Note>MCP Connectors are the inverse of the MCP server. A connector lets the Cube agent reach out to an external MCP server and call its tools. The MCP server lets external MCP clients reach in to Cube and query your data. One is outbound, the other inbound — you can use either or both.
</Note>Open the admin panel and go to MCP Connectors. You can add a connector from the built-in directory or connect a custom MCP server.
The connector directory includes vetted, first-party integrations with streamlined setup.
<Steps> <Step title="Browse the directory"> Select **Browse directory** and choose a service (for example, Notion, Linear, Sentry, or Attio). </Step> <Step title="Authenticate"> Complete the connector's authentication flow (see [Authentication](#authentication) below). For OAuth-based connectors you'll be redirected to the provider to authorize access. </Step> <Step title="Enable tools"> Review the tools the connector exposes and choose which ones are available to the agent. See [Choosing which tools are available](#choosing-which-tools-are-available). </Step> </Steps>Any service that exposes a remote MCP endpoint can be connected as a custom connector.
<Steps> <Step title="Add a custom connector"> Select **Add custom connector** and provide a name and the server's HTTPS endpoint URL (for example, `https://mcp.example.com/mcp`). </Step> <Step title="Authenticate"> Choose the authentication method the server requires — OAuth or a user-provided credential such as an API key or token. </Step> <Step title="Enable tools"> Once connected, the server's tools are discovered automatically. Choose which ones the agent may call. </Step> </Steps>Connectors authenticate to the external service in one of two ways, depending on what the service supports:
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| OAuth | You authorize Cube with the provider through a standard OAuth flow. The connector stores the resulting tokens and refreshes them as needed. Used by most directory connectors. |
| User-provided credential | You supply a credential — such as an API key or access token — that the connector uses to authenticate. Used when a service does not offer OAuth. |
A connector's status indicator in the connectors list shows whether it is connected and authenticated.
Each connected server reports the full set of tools it exposes (shown as a count, for
example 16 / 16). You control which of those tools the agent is allowed to call.
Enabling only the tools you need keeps the agent focused and limits what it can do through
each connector.
Once a connector is configured and its tools are enabled, the agent can call them in Analytics Chat as part of answering a request — the same way it queries your semantic model. The agent decides when a tool is relevant based on the user's request and the tool's description. If a tool requires the user to authenticate to the external service, the agent prompts for authorization in chat before the tool runs.
Managing MCP Connectors requires administrator access in Cube Cloud — the same access needed to manage other organization-level settings in the admin panel. Connectors apply across the organization; using the tools they expose is available to anyone with chat access, subject to the tools you enable.