Third party connectors with remote MCP

Custom connectors enable you to link Claude directly to your essential tools and data sources using the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

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What are third party connectors?

Custom connectors allow Claude to operate within your preferred software and leverage comprehensive context from your external tools. You can:

• Connect Claude to existing remote MCP servers
• Build your own remote MCP servers for any tool

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Finding connectors

Browse the Connectors Directory to discover third-party MCP servers that are ready to use across all Claude products. Some are verified by Anthropic and others are community connectors; see connector verification.

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Adding custom connectors

You can manually add any third-party connector to Claude as long as you have the URL of that remote MCP server.

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For Team and Enterprise plans

Owners must:

1. Navigate to Admin settings > Connectors
2. Click “Add custom connector”
3. Enter the remote MCP server URL
4. Optionally configure OAuth Client ID/Secret in Advanced settings
5. Click “Add”

Members then:

1. Go to Settings > Connectors
2. Find the connector with “Custom” label
3. Click “Connect” to authenticate

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For Free, Pro, and Max plans

1. Navigate to Settings > Connectors
2. Click “Add custom connector”
3. Enter the remote MCP server URL
4. Optionally configure OAuth credentials
5. Click “Add”

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Enabling connectors in chat

Use the ”+” button in your chat interface to access “Connectors,” where you can enable/disable connectors per conversation.

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Authenticating with request headers

If your MCP server authenticates with an API key, bearer token, or other fixed credential instead of OAuth, you can configure it in the Request headers section of the Add custom connector dialog. Claude stores each header value securely, does not show it again after you save, and sends it on every request to your server. Request headers suit services where everyone in your organization shares one credential, such as an internal tool or a service account. If each person needs to sign in with their own account, use OAuth instead. You can also use request headers in addition to OAuth, including OAuth with your own pre-registered client credentials. Headers configured on an OAuth connection are sent on every request alongside the OAuth bearer token. This is useful for verifying where a request came from, passing additional client metadata, or working with tunnels and gateways that need their own routing header. The one exception is Authorization: OAuth owns that header, so it cannot be configured as a request header on an OAuth connection.

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Adding a request header

1. In the Add custom connector dialog, open Request headers.
2. Select a header name from the list, or enter one manually. Claude accepts a fixed set of standard authentication and routing header names such as authorization, x-api-key, and x-auth-token. Header names are restricted to this allowlist for security reasons: each name is reviewed before Claude will send it to a third-party server, which prevents connector configuration from being used to send arbitrary header names. To request an addition to the allowlist, contact your Anthropic representative.
3. Enter the header value exactly as your server expects to receive it.
4. Choose whether the header is Required. When a required header has no stored value at connection time, the connection fails. When an optional header has no value, Claude simply omits it from the request.
5. Repeat for any additional headers your server needs (you can add up to four), then click Add.

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Enter the full header value

Claude sends the value exactly as you enter it. It does not add an authentication scheme or any other prefix. For an Authorization header, include the scheme in the value: Most servers that use bearer tokens reject the second form. If your server’s documentation shows Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN, enter Bearer followed by your token, including the space. The same applies to Basic authentication: enter Basic followed by the base64-encoded credentials.

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Managing connectors

To remove or edit connectors:

1. Go to Settings > Connectors
2. Click “Remove” or select the three-dot menu
3. Follow prompts to edit or remove

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Security and privacy

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Best practices

• Only connect to servers from trusted organizations
• Carefully review requested permission scopes during authentication
• Be aware of prompt injection risks; Claude has built-in protections
• Monitor for unexpected changes in tool behavior

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Tool actions

Remote MCP servers enable Claude to invoke tools that can:

• Read data from applications
• Create, modify, or delete data
• Take actions on your behalf

Usage guidelines:

• Monitor Claude’s actions for unintended effects
• Review tool approval requests carefully
• Only click “Allow always” for trusted servers
• Disable irrelevant tools via the “Search and tools” menu

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Reporting issues

Report malicious MCP servers to Anthropic’s Bug Bounty Program.

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