Connect to MCP Clients

You can connect Arcade MCP servers to any -compatible client through an Arcade MCP Gateway. The gateway exposes the you have selected at a single HTTP endpoint, and the client points at that endpoint’s URL.

What you need

An Arcade and an Arcade API key.
An Arcade MCP Gateway with the you want to expose to the client.
An -compatible client. Step-by-step guides for common clients are linked below; any other client that supports remote HTTP works against the same gateway URL.

Connect a custom or unlisted MCP client

If your client is not one of the clients listed below — for example, a custom in-house client, an SDK you are building against, or a third-party client Arcade has not documented individually — connect it the same way you would add any remote HTTP :

Transport: remote HTTP (sometimes called http or streamable-http, depending on the client).
Server URL: your Arcade Gateway URL, copied from the gateway’s page in the Arcade dashboard.
Authentication: pick the authentication mode when you create the gateway (see User authorization below).

There is no client-side Arcade SDK involved. Any client that speaks the remote HTTP transport can talk to an Arcade gateway.

User authorization

An Arcade Gateway authenticates every end user before it lets the client call a . Pick one of these authentication modes on the gateway:

Arcade Auth — every end user is a member of your Arcade . On first connect, the client redirects the through Arcade’s OAuth flow. Good for development, testing, and internal use.
(recommended for production) — the gateway delegates sign-in to your own OIDC identity provider (Entra ID, Okta, Auth0, Clerk, Stytch, or similar). Each end signs in with the identity they already have. See User Sources.
Arcade Headers — the client passes an end-user identifier and an key in HTTP headers. Use this when the client cannot run a browser-based OAuth flow.

Once the end user is signed in, Arcade handles per-user authorization for each downstream (GitHub, Slack, Google Workspace, and so on). The first time a tool needs access, the is prompted to authorize the underlying service, and Arcade stores and refreshes those tokens per user from then on. See MCP Gateways for the full comparison of authentication modes and how to pick one when you create a gateway.