Connecting clients

The exact connection flow depends on which client you’re using. The general pattern is the same: point the client at the Coverbase MCP endpoint, complete the OAuth flow in your browser, and the tools become available in your session.

Server endpoint

https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp

The server speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP. On first connection your client opens a browser window so you can sign in to Coverbase and authorize access. Your permissions in Coverbase determine what the connected assistant can see and do.

Choosing an authentication method

The server accepts two kinds of credential, and which one you want depends on whether a person is present at setup.

	OAuth 2.0	API key
Setup	Browser sign-in on first connect	Paste a key into your client config
Best for	Desktop and IDE clients you use yourself	Headless pipelines, CI, containers
Identity	The signed-in user	Whoever the key was minted to act as
Access	Read/write, or narrower if the client asks	Read/write or read-only, fixed when the key is generated

OAuth (PKCE, no client secret) is the default and the right choice for interactive clients. The rest of this page assumes it. If a browser step is impossible, generate a long-lived key instead and send it as a bearer token. This is the part that is easy to miss: a client configured with only a URL and no Authorization header will be answered with a 401 and pushed into the OAuth flow, which is exactly what an API key exists to avoid.

Generate a key

In Coverbase, go to Configuration → MCP Server and generate a key under API key. It starts with cb_mcp_ and is shown only once.Two choices on that dialog decide what the key can do. This key acts as picks the identity behind it: yourself, a service account that needs no seat in your identity provider, or another user. Read-only withholds write permanently. If you are wiring up an automation that should only ever read, see Programmatic read-only access.

This is a different page from Configuration → API Keys, which issues ak_ keys for the Coverbase REST API. The two key types are not interchangeable: an ak_ key will not authenticate against the MCP server.

Send it as a bearer token

Add an Authorization header to whichever config shape your client uses:

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http coverbase https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer cb_mcp_YOUR_KEY"

Config file

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coverbase": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer cb_mcp_YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Two limits worth knowing before you build on this:

Key generation is restricted to organization admins. If the button isn’t there, ask an admin in your organization to generate one for you.
A key is not a service account. It carries the permissions of the user who created it, re-checked against their live membership on every request. If that person’s role changes or they leave the organization, the key stops working. For an unattended pipeline, generate it from an account that will outlast any individual.

If your integration only needs to read and write Coverbase records, rather than drive an AI assistant, the REST API is usually the better fit. It is built for non-interactive use, and its ak_ keys can belong to a true service account.

Claude Code

Add the Coverbase server with the HTTP transport:

claude mcp add --transport http coverbase https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp

Then start Claude Code, run /mcp, and choose Authenticate to complete OAuth sign-in in your browser. The Coverbase tools are available once the status shows connected.

Use --transport http for the remote Coverbase server. Without it, the CLI assumes a local stdio command and the connection will fail.

Claude.ai

Open Connectors

In Claude, open Settings → Connectors.

Add Coverbase

Click Add custom connector, name it Coverbase, and paste the server endpoint.

Authorize

Click Add, then Connect. You’ll be redirected to Coverbase to sign in, review the requested scopes, and approve.

Use the tools

Return to Claude. The Coverbase tools are now available in your conversations.

Claude Desktop

Open Claude Desktop, go to Settings → Connectors, and click Add custom connector. Name it Coverbase, paste the server endpoint, and click Add. Click Connect and sign in to Coverbase when prompted.

Cursor

In Cursor’s settings, open MCP → Add new server, or add the server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coverbase": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor handles the OAuth flow in your browser on first use.

VS Code

VS Code supports MCP servers natively in GitHub Copilot agent mode. Add the server to your settings.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "coverbase": {
        "type": "streamable-http",
        "url": "https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Reload VS Code and sign in to Coverbase when Copilot prompts you.

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Copilot Studio can call Coverbase as a Model Context Protocol tool.

Add a tool

In your agent, open Tools → Add a tool → Model Context Protocol, then add a new MCP server.

Configure the server

Set the transport to Streamable HTTP and enter the server endpoint https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp.

Authenticate

Choose OAuth 2.0 authentication. Copilot Studio uses dynamic discovery to find the authorization server, so no manual endpoint configuration is required. Complete sign-in to Coverbase to finish.

Copilot Studio probes the RFC 8414 §3.1 path-insertion discovery variant (/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server/{path}). The Coverbase server serves authorization-server metadata at that path, so dynamic discovery works out of the box. If discovery fails with “Could not discover authorization server metadata,” confirm you entered the full /mcp endpoint.

Microsoft ecosystem and other agents

Coverbase works with any framework that speaks MCP over OAuth 2.0 with Streamable HTTP transport, including Semantic Kernel, the Microsoft Agent Framework (AutoGen), and Azure AI Foundry agents. Register https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp as a remote MCP server / tool in your framework’s MCP client and let it run the OAuth flow. Other popular clients:

Cline (VS Code): open the Cline MCP Servers panel and add a new remote server with the Coverbase endpoint.
Goose: run goose configure, choose to add a remote MCP server, and enter the endpoint.
MCP Inspector: run npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector, enter the endpoint, authenticate, and exercise tools directly.

Clients without remote MCP support (mcp-remote)

For clients that only support local stdio servers, bridge to the remote server with mcp-remote:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coverbase": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.coverbase.app/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

mcp-remote proxies the connection and handles the OAuth handshake in your browser on first use.

Other clients

Any client that supports MCP with OAuth 2.0 and Streamable HTTP transport should work. The OAuth discovery documents are published at https://mcp.coverbase.app/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource and https://mcp.coverbase.app/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server. Point your client at the server URL and the rest is standard.

Troubleshooting

No tools appearing, permission denied errors, write actions not executing, 403 Forbidden during authentication, and other common issues.

API Reference

Data Import & Export

Field reference

Reporting & Templates

Integration Workflows

AI, Agents, MCP

Server endpoint

Choosing an authentication method

Claude Code

Claude.ai

Claude Desktop

Cursor

VS Code

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft ecosystem and other agents

Clients without remote MCP support (mcp-remote)

Other clients

Troubleshooting

​Server endpoint

​Choosing an authentication method

​Claude Code

​Claude.ai

​Claude Desktop

​Cursor

​VS Code

​Microsoft Copilot Studio

​Microsoft ecosystem and other agents

​Clients without remote MCP support (mcp-remote)

​Other clients

Troubleshooting

Server endpoint

Choosing an authentication method

Claude Code

Claude.ai

Claude Desktop

Cursor

VS Code

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft ecosystem and other agents

Clients without remote MCP support (mcp-remote)

Other clients