MCP Servers

Connect MCP Servers to Glue

Glue AI can now act as an MCP client, allowing it to integrate with applications that expose an MCP server. When an MCP server is connected to Glue, Glue AI can understand your natural language requests and translate them into API-level operations within your connected applications.

MCP servers are installed for your entire workspace, so you only need to configure it once for every team member to benefit.

If you’re new to MCP: Model Context Protocol is a new open standard that gives language models a uniform way to access external data and tools. This means Glue AI’s capabilities will automatically expand as the MCP ecosystem expands. Learn more about MCP here.

🧠 How Glue works with MCP

Glue uses MCP (Model Context Protocol) to connect with third-party applications through a standardized interface.

Key Roles

  • Glue AI acts as the MCP client, sending requests.

  • The connected application have an MCP server, which receives and responds to those requests.

Types of MCP Servers

To connect an application to Glue, it must have an available MCP server. These come in two forms:

Type

Description

Setup

Examples

Remote Server

Remotely hosted and maintained by a 3rd party app.

Easy

MCP Server Directory

Open Source Community Server

Must be installed and hosted locally on your device.

Difficult

Figma, GMail, Hubspot - and more can be found here

🔍 Don’t see a server for the app you need?

Some apps may not yet offer MCP, but more are being developed and released regularly.

🔧 Step-by-Step Setup Guide

Start with the Easy Route — Check the Glue apps directory

  1. Go to the Apps tab in your Glue inbox.

  2. Search for your app in our directory — we’ve already tested and built one-click installs for many popular servers.

  3. If you find it, click the name of your app, click the "MCP" button to install.

  4. Click Sign in and follow the quick authorization flow to connect. ✅ If your app is listed here, you’re done! That’s the easiest setup path.

Check other MCP directories for additional servers

There are new servers being spun up everyday! Just because one is not listed in our Apps directory doesn't mean there is not an available MCP server. You may need to go through a more manual setup process.

1) Find a compatible MCP server for your app

  • Remote / hosted servers – if the app has an official remote MCP server, we recommend using that over a community server. Glue supports the SSE (Server-Sent Events) transport and streamable HTTP.

  • Community servers – look for one that supports Streamable HTTP, SSE or stdio transport. You can use a proxy to translate stdio to SSE—see below.

  • Helpful directories:

Many servers are already deprecating SSE support, so we recommend using Streamable HTTP when you can.

2) Choose how you will run the MCP server

The setup steps differ based on the type of MCP server you're using — remote or locally hosted community servers with either Streamable HTTP, SSE or stdio transport support.

Scenario
What you need
Glue transport

Remote, hosted server

Just the server’s public URL (from the provider)

Streamable HTTP ➜ connect directly

SSE ➜ connect directly

Local, community server (Streamable HTTP or SSE)

Run the server + ngrok

Streamable HTTP ➜ connect via ngrok

SSE ➜ connect via ngrok

Local, community server (stdio)

Run the server + mcp-proxy + ngrok

stdio ➜ mcp-proxy ➜ connet via ngrok

☁️ Using a remote/hosted MCP Server (Streamable HTTP or SSE)

These are hosted by the third party application itself. Setup is minimal.

  1. Follow the provider's setup instructions.

  2. Copy the server’s URL (e.g. https://mcp.linear.app/sse).

  3. Skip to Step 3 · Connect the MCP Server to Glue.

🖥️ Using a local community MCP Server (Streamable HTTP, SSE or stdio)

Each community server will have an open source instructions list that needs to be followed and will vary based on the app. These are the general steps that will be required.

  1. Install the MCP Server to your local machine

  • Follow app-specific instructions (usually in their GitHub README).

  • Prerequisites may include tools like Node.js, Homebrew, etc.

# Example: Linear MCP server delivered via npx
# replace with the command shown in the server’s README
npx @ibraheem4/linear-mcp

  1. Install & launch server via mcp-proxy (stdio only) – converts stdio ⇄ SSE

brew install uv               # light Python runtime used by mcp-proxy
uv tool install git+https://github.com/sparfenyuk/mcp-proxy
# --pass-environment  → passes your shell’s env vars (API keys, etc.) to the server
# --sse-port 9000     → local port on which mcp-proxy will expose an SSE endpoint
# everything after that is the *command* to start the MCP server
mcp-proxy --pass-environment --sse-port=9000 \\
  npx @ibraheem4/linear-mcp

  1. Expose your local MCP endpoint to Glue (Glue cannot reach localhost)

  • Install a proxy like ngrok if you have not already

  • ngrok shows a forwarding URL like https://<random>.ngrok-free.app4

# Install & authenticate ngrok
brew install --cask ngrok

# Forward the SSE port (9000) with basic auth
ngrok http 9000 --basic-auth="YOURUSER:YOURPASS"

  1. Form the Glue-compatible URL

  • This URL will allow Glue to route requests securely to your MCP server.

example for SSE

<https://YOURUSER>:YOURPASS@<random>.ngrok-free.app/sse

💡 Pro Tip: Choose a unique username/password (must be at least 8 characters). Glue will use this to authenticate securely.

3) Add the MCP Server to Glue

  1. Open the Glue app.

  2. Click your profile image → click Preferences.

  3. Find the Labs section → click MCP Servers.

  4. Click the Add MCP server button.

  5. Name your MCP server.

  6. Paste the MCP server URL into the Server URL field.

    1. Reminder: If connecting to a local MCP server, use the ngrok URL

  7. Click Add server or follow any additional instructions to sign in and authorize the third party app, as prompted.

✅ Glue AI is now connected to the app via its MCP server. You will be taken to a details screen where you can configure custom rules for the server (see step 4).

See the servers that have already been set up and click "Add MCP server" to add more
Example of setting up the official Linear MCP remote server

If you paste in your Server URL before naming the Server, you will get an error message and need to press the retry button after you input a name.

Note: You cannot edit the MCP server configuration once it’s added, simply remove it and re-add if you want to make changes to the URL.

Configure Rules for your MCP Server for the best experience

Glue AI needs to know certain identifiers about the tool you are calling via MCP to be able to take the action appropriately, like your workspace or team ID. To make the interactions seamless, store this information in the Server's Rules so Glue AI always has access without having to request it each time.

If you've just set up your server, you will be automatically taken to the server details page where you can set rules.

  1. To navigate back to the server rules later, go the Apps section of your inbox, search for the specific app and click on it.

  2. Click on the MCP button (it will show a gear icon if it's already been installed).

  3. You can set both workspace wide rules under "Shared AI rules" as well as personal ones just for you. These inform how Glue AI should interact with the server. Examples include storing IDs, naming conventions, and templates.

  4. Click save.

Do not store any sensitive data in your server rules, like passwords, tokens, or any other authentication-related secrets. OAuth will prompt users to authenticate directly with the MCP server, and securely store the resulting credentials, so there is no need to store them anywhere in Glue.

Here is an example of the rules we have set on our workspace's Linear MCP Server.

- Web (WEB) team ID: ABC-123
- API (API) team ID: DEF-456
- Glue (GLU) team ID: GHI-789

When creating issues:
- Infer the teamId from context:
    - For issues relating to the API, glue-api, or Glue AI, use the API Team ID.
    - For issues relating to the native app, client, or glue-web, use the Web Team ID.
    - If you do not know, always default to the Glue (GLUE) Team ID.
- Add detailed description in the `description` param, using Markdown where helpful.
- Issue priority should be 3 (Normal) unless otherwise specified.

💬 What Can You Do With Glue + MCP?

Once connected, Glue AI can

  • Make real-time queries to your connected app

  • Trigger actions via natural language (e.g., “Create a new issue in Linear”)

  • Use the rules you've set for the server to customize how the server is called

Each command requires your confirmation before being executed.

⚠️ Support & Limitations

Capability
Supported

OAuth Support

✅

Header-based auth

❌

SSE (Server-Sent Events) Transport

✅

Streamable HTTP Transport

✅

MCP Client Features

❌ Resources ❌ Prompts ✅ Tools ❌ Sampling ❌ Roots

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