Connect your agent

Nobody pastes a secret key into the agent's chat. Pick one:

• Browser sign-in (MCP OAuth). Clients that support MCP authorization (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code) open the Scribase consent page the first time they connect; add the server without a header.
• scribase login. The agent runs it, shows you a link and a code, and you approve in the browser; it receives its own scoped, expiring token and keeps it in the keychain. See Why you never need to paste a secret key.
• An agent token in SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN, for clients that need a header. See Tokens and safety for which token to give an agent. Keep it in your shell environment or secret manager, never in a committed file.

Remote MCP server

The hosted MCP endpoint is https://api.scribase.com/mcp (streamable HTTP, bearer token). There is nothing to install. Each session gets its own scratch database for the schema tools, destroyed when the session ends, so one agent's experiments never reach another's.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http scribase https://api.scribase.com/mcp

Claude Code opens the Scribase consent page in your browser the first time it connects. With a token instead:

claude mcp add --transport http scribase https://api.scribase.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Or install the Scribase plugin, which bundles the MCP server with the scribase and scribase-safe-change skills. From a checkout of the Scribase repository:

claude plugin marketplace add ./agents/plugin
claude plugin install scribase@scribase

Cursor

.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scribase": {
      "url": "https://api.scribase.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN}" }
    }
  }
}

Add the project rule: copy agents/templates/.cursor/rules/scribase.mdc to .cursor/rules/.

Codex

~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.scribase]
url = "https://api.scribase.com/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Append agents/templates/AGENTS.md to your project's AGENTS.md.

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json, the same as Cursor with serverUrl instead of url. Copy agents/templates/.windsurf/rules/scribase.md to .windsurf/rules/.

Local stdio server

Build it once from the repository (Rust 1.85+):

cargo install --locked --path crates/mcp

Your editor starts scribase-mcp itself. Schema tools (schema.propose, policy.simulate, policy.test, schema.apply, sql.explain) run on a scratch Postgres the server starts (it needs initdb, pg_ctl and psql on PATH), or on the cluster in PGHOST. Control tools use SCRIBASE_API_URL and SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "scribase": {
      "command": "scribase-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SCRIBASE_API_URL": "https://api.scribase.com",
        "SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN": "${env:SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

The CLI, for agents that prefer a shell

cargo install --locked --path crates/scribase-cli
scribase login --json   # device sign-in: prints a link + code, waits for your approval
scribase doctor         # checks the URL and the token
scribase help           # the exact command list

The CLI reads the same SCRIBASE_API_URL and SCRIBASE_ACCESS_TOKEN, so an agent can mix MCP tools and CLI commands in one session.