Connect a custom MCP server
Bring any tool with an MCP server into Pad, from a vendor's official server to a service your own team runs.
Any service that exposes a remote MCP server can become a connection: a vendor's official server, or one your team built for an internal system. Once connected, its tools work in chats like any connection from the catalog.
Add the server
Open Connections in the sidebar, choose Add connection, and pick Custom MCP server. Give it a name your team will recognize and paste the server URL, an https address such as https://mcp.example.com/mcp. Pad speaks both the Streamable HTTP and the SSE transports.
Choose how it authenticates
Pick the authentication the server expects:
- OAuth (automatic) for servers that register clients on their own; you sign in on the server's page and Pad keeps the tokens.
- OAuth (your app's client) when the vendor gave you a client id and secret to use.
- Bearer token for a personal access token or an API key.
- Custom headers for anything else the server needs on each request.
- None for servers that take no credentials.
Choose the account model
With a Shared account, everyone acts through the one account you connect. With Personal accounts, each member links their own before using the tools. Pick Personal accounts whenever what the tool does should be attributed to the person doing it.
Connect and check the tools
Finish by signing in or entering the credential. Pad reads the server's tool list into the connection's Tools tab, which shows what the model will be able to call and lets you turn individual tools off.
Share it
A new connection is private to you until you grant it. From its Access page, grant the groups and people who should hold it; it then appears as a source in their chats.
Good to know
- Actions that change something ask for approval before they run. See Tools and approvals.
- If the server's token expires or is revoked, the connection shows that it needs reauthorization and its creator is notified. Reconnect from the connection's page.
- Credentials are never shown again after they are saved, not even to the person who entered them.