Connect an MCP server

Connect

The Model Context Protocol lets a service expose its tools to an assistant. Any remote server that speaks it can be plugged into your project. This is how you reach a service MaShop does not ship.

It is also the one connector surface whose tools really run. The 23 tools of the six official connectors are declarations with no executor. A tool on a connected MCP server is relayed to that server and executed.

Find a server

Open the avatar menu, then Account settings, then the Connectors tab. Keep the toggle on Your connectors. Under the list of what is already plugged in sits the directory, in two blocks that are never mixed.

• Official connectors. Thirty services whose address was taken from their own documentation: Stripe, Notion, Linear, Supabase, GitHub, Atlassian, Asana, Intercom, PayPal, Square, Sentry, Canva, Cloudflare, Vercel, monday.com, Webflow, Zapier, Figma, Airtable, GitLab, PostHog, Grafana, Algolia, Prisma, Sanity, Wix, Close, Apify, Hugging Face, Egnyte.
• Public registry. The public MCP registry, queried live from two characters typed. It carries the notice that entries are published by their authors and not verified by MaShop.

A service already plugged into the project is greyed out. Click Add on a card to start the authorization.

Add a server that is not in the directory

The Add button on the header row opens Add a custom connector. Two fields matter.

• Name. Shown in your connector list.
• Server address. The HTTPS address where the server accepts MCP requests.

Advanced settings hides an optional OAuth client ID and client secret. You only need them when the service refuses automatic client registration. MaShop tries that first.

What MaShop checks before it connects

The address is probed first, and a refusal is named rather than generic. Each cause has its own message.

Cause	What you read
Invalid address	This is not a valid URL. Check that it starts with https://
Not HTTPS	Only https:// addresses are accepted.
Credentials in the address	Remove the username and the password from the address.
Internal address	This address leads to an internal network. Only publicly reachable servers can be connected.
Downgraded protocol	This service redirects to an unencrypted address. The connection was stopped.
Cross domain redirect	The connection was stopped so your credentials are not sent there.
No answer	This server did not respond.
Not an MCP entry point	The server answered, but this is not an MCP entry point.
Metadata missing	The authorization metadata of this server cannot be found.
Silent authority	The authority of this server does not expose its metadata.
No PKCE	The authority does not advertise PKCE S256, which the specification requires.
Nothing to connect	This server requires no authorization. There is nothing to connect.
No authority	This server names no authority to issue a token.

What happens to your credentials

• Tokens are encrypted with AES 256 GCM before they are written. The connection is refused outright when the encryption key is not configured, in every environment.
• Every outgoing call of the connection flow runs on a pinned transport. Private addresses are refused before the call, and each redirect is judged again. Three redirects at most.
• The return link is single use. It is deleted the moment it is read, it expires after ten minutes, and it must be opened by the same person who started the connection.

Check that it works

Back from the service you read: Service connected. Your agents can now use it. The card then appears in your connector list with its host and a switch.

One gap to know about: no screen lists the tools of a connected server. The tool cache stays empty, so the card shows the host without a tool count.

How an agent uses it

• A remote tool is addressed as mcp:server:tool, so two services exposing the same tool name are never confused.
• Before any call, the server is checked to belong to the project of the run.
• The call is relayed to the server and executed. The answer comes back to the agent as the result of the tool.
• A remote call is capped at 20 seconds, and at most 4000 characters of its answer reach the agent.
• The access token is renewed 60 seconds before it expires.

The guard still applies, and it applies late. Since no screen sets a permission for a remote tool, none is stored, and the name matches no safe verb. Each call therefore asks for your signature, unless the agent is set to autonomous.

Limits

• Server address, 500 characters. Connector name, 120 characters. Search, 80 characters.
• Ten connections and ten probes per minute. Twenty disconnections per minute. Sixty directory searches per minute.
• The public registry answers only from two characters typed, returns twelve results at most, times out at six seconds, and is cached for an hour.
• One live server per project and per address. A revoked address can be plugged in again.
• Discovery gives up after 8 seconds of silence, 25 seconds in total, or 2 MB of answer.

When it breaks

• The card stays on Waiting for your approval on the service. The attempt was written before the redirect and the return never landed. Click Cancel to clear it.
• Your session expired during the connection. Sign in again, then start over.
• The return link has expired or has already been used. Start the connection again from the service.
• The service refused to grant access. The reason is noted on its card.

Remove the connection

Turn the switch off on the card. The line moves to revoked, and the access token, the refresh token, the client secret and the tool cache are erased.

The token is not revoked at the provider. MaShop no longer holds an access. If you want the authorization gone on their side, revoke it in your account there. Plugging the server back in means going through the whole consent again.

Let an app drive MaShop

The other side of the toggle, Connected apps, lists the apps allowed to act on your MaShop account through MCP. Each card carries the app name, the logo it declared at registration, since when it is connected and when it was last used.

MaShop exposes 26 tools on that side, covering projects, deployment, files, analytics, knowledge and credits. Point your client at the server address and let it run the OAuth flow.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mashop": {
      "url": "https://mcp.mashop.app/mcp",
      "auth": { "type": "oauth" }
    }
  }
}

Revoke ends it. A confirmation asks first, the app can no longer act on the account, calls in flight fail, and reconnecting is done from the client itself.

See also

• How connections work
• Tool permissions
• Model Context Protocol documentation