Connect any MCP client

Any chat app or agent that speaks MCP can deploy to gangway, with any model behind it: a report, a deck, a dashboard or a whole app, at a URL on your domain. That covers self-hosted chat apps such as Open WebUI, LibreChat or LM Studio, agent frameworks, and your own scripts. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and VS Code have their own steps in Connect an agent.

Before you start

• A client that speaks Streamable HTTP MCP, signing in with OAuth or sending an Authorization header. Most do; look for a remote MCP server, tool server or connector setting.
• MCP turned on in gangway, under Admin → Server → Surfaces.
• A model with reliable tool calling. gangway’s deploy tool takes whole files as arguments, which small models get wrong. Pick one that is good at tool use.

1. Choose how it signs in

OAuth, if the client offers it. Choose OAuth, give it the MCP URL, and sign in to gangway when your browser opens. gangway asks you to approve the client and choose its scopes, as for any agent, and lists it under Account → Connected agents. The client registers itself, so there is no client ID or secret to paste. Then skip to Use it.

An API token otherwise. In gangway, open Account → API tokens and make a token for the client. Choose its scopes:

• artifacts to let it deploy only static sites and artifacts, and touch only what it deployed;
• read and deploy to let it run apps with a backend and a database too.

Copy the token. It starts with gw_ and is shown once.

2. Add gangway to the client

With a token, add a remote MCP server with:

Setting	Value
Transport	Streamable HTTP
URL	https://mcp.<your domain>/
Auth	Bearer, with the token; or the header below
Header	Authorization: Bearer gw_…

A client configured in JSON usually takes something like:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gangway": {
      "url": "https://mcp.<your domain>/",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer gw_…" }
    }
  }
}

The client connects and lists gangway’s tools.

3. Use it

Turn gangway’s tools on for a chat if the client asks you to, and ask for something:

Make a one-page report on these numbers and put it on gangway.

The model deploys and replies with the URL. Ask for a change and it redeploys to the same URL. gangway’s MCP server tells every client how to use its templates, so documents, decks and boards come out in your theme.

If it does not work

• The client cannot connect. It has to reach and trust the MCP URL from wherever it runs, often its own container. A lan or local install uses gangway’s own certificate, which most clients do not trust out of the box; use a domain. See Choosing a mode.
• It connects but gets 401. The header is missing or the token was revoked or has expired. Some clients send an empty header when Bearer is chosen with no key.
• The connection times out. Some clients give the first handshake only a few seconds; raise their MCP timeout.
• The model describes a deploy instead of making one, or sends broken arguments. That is the model, not the connection; try one with stronger tool calling.