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Once you’ve created a Gateway, the next step is connecting it to the tools you actually work in, like Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Windsurf, or any other MCP-compatible client. This page walks through that connection process.
This page covers connecting a Gateway you’ve already created to an external client. If you haven’t set one up yet, start with Gateway/Deployment Creation.

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Opening Client Setup

  1. Navigate to Gateway > MCP Gateway to open your Gateway List.
  2. Find the Gateway you want to connect and click Client Setup on its card.
  3. Pick the tab for the client you’re connecting: Cursor, Claude Code, or Claude. Each one walks you through the exact steps for that client.
If your client isn’t one of those three, everything you need is still just the Gateway’s URL. See Connecting Other Clients below.
You don’t need to open Client Setup just to grab the connection address. Copy MCP Gateway URL, available from the card’s menu, copies it directly. This is handy if you’re following a client’s own setup docs and only need the address.
If a Gateway is shared at the Tenant level, connecting is still something each person does individually. There’s no single login or key shared between coworkers, everyone who wants to use a Tenant Gateway from their own client opens Client Setup and authenticates with their own account.

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Connecting Cursor

  1. Open Client Setup on your Gateway and select the Cursor tab.
  2. Cursor opens automatically with a prompt to install the connection. Confirm the install.
  3. Cursor opens your browser to complete sign-in the first time it needs to connect.
You can add a Gateway to Cursor by editing ~/.cursor/mcp.json yourself instead of using the button:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-gateway": {
      "url": "https://mcp-gateway.airia.com/gateway/{your-gateway-id}/mcp"
    }
  }
}

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Connecting Claude Desktop

The Claude tab in Client Setup gives you two ways to connect.
  1. In Claude, open your profile menu, then go to Settings > Feature Preview > Custom Connectors.
  2. Click Add Connector and enter a name along with your Gateway’s URL, both shown in the Client Setup dialog.
  3. Claude handles sign-in automatically the first time you use the connector.

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Local config with OAuth

  1. Copy the configuration shown in Client Setup and add it to your Claude MCP settings file:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "my-gateway": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp-gateway.airia.com/gateway/{your-gateway-id}/mcp"]
    }
  }
}
  1. Fully restart Claude Desktop. It won’t pick up the new server until you do.
  2. Sign in when prompted. OAuth is handled automatically once Claude connects.
Your Claude MCP settings file lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS, or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows. Restart Claude Desktop completely after any change, closing the window alone isn’t enough.

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Connecting Claude Code

  1. Open Client Setup and select the Claude Code tab, then run the command it shows you in your terminal:
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http my-gateway "https://mcp-gateway.airia.com/gateway/{your-gateway-id}/mcp"
  1. Exit Claude Code completely and relaunch it. The new server won’t show up until you do.
  2. Inside Claude Code, run /mcp, select your Gateway, and complete the sign-in flow in your browser.
See Anthropic’s MCP authentication documentation for more on how that flow works from Claude Code’s side.

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Connecting Other Clients

Cursor, Claude Desktop, and Claude Code get dedicated setup screens because they’re the most common clients Airia customers use, but a Gateway’s endpoint is standards-compliant, so it works with any MCP client that supports remote HTTP servers, including Windsurf, VS Code, and others. To connect one of these:
  1. Grab your Gateway’s URL, either from Client Setup or with Copy MCP Gateway URL on the Gateway’s card menu.
  2. Add it to your client as a remote MCP server, following that client’s own instructions for doing so.
  3. If your client prompts for authentication, choose OAuth. Your client will walk you through a one-time sign-in in your browser, and it takes care of the rest automatically.
The exact wording and steps for signing in vary a bit from client to client, but every one of them is connecting to the same underlying Gateway the same way.

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Radar-Enabled Gateways

If a Gateway has Radar turned on, every step above still applies exactly as written, Client Setup automatically points your client at the right endpoint. If you’re adding a client manually and building the URL yourself, use /radar instead of /mcp at the end.

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About Connection Names

Airia generates a short name for the Gateway automatically wherever a client needs one to label the connection, based on the Gateway’s own name. If that name looks abbreviated or unfamiliar once it shows up in your client, that’s expected, feel free to rename the entry locally in your own configuration. Renaming it on your end never affects the Gateway itself or anyone else connected to it.

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Troubleshooting

  • The Gateway doesn’t show up after I connected it. Fully quit and relaunch your client. Most MCP clients only load new servers on startup, so closing and reopening a window isn’t the same as restarting the app.
  • My client isn’t prompting me to sign in. Check for a blocked popup or a browser tab that opened in the background.
  • A connection that used to work has stopped authenticating. Reconnect through Client Setup to re-establish it. See Credential Recovery for the full picture of what can trigger this and how Airia helps you recover.