MCP Connector Plugin
The bundled MCP plugin connects Model Context Protocol servers and makes their tools available to Elowen. It supports local stdio processes and remote http or sse connections. For adding a server and using its tools, see MCP.
Manage MCP servers
Open MCP under Infrastructure in the web interface. Use Add server to set its name, ownership, transport and connection details. For stdio, enter a command, arguments and any environment variables; for http or sse, enter a URL. You can enable or disable a server, view its discovered tools, search and filter the list, reconnect one server or choose Reconnect all.
An enabled server is verified and its tools discovered when saved; if verification fails, the change is not kept. The page shows whether a server is Connected, Disconnected, in Error or Disabled, plus its transport, ownership and tool count. An enabled server may still be disconnected; that is different from turning it off. Use Reconnect after resolving an error. Reconnect all retries eligible disconnected or failed servers and reports successes and failures. Removing a server immediately makes its tools unavailable. Saving plugin settings or enabling or disabling the plugin requests an Elowen restart, announced as Restart.
In the CLI, /mcp opens a picker to inspect configured servers, their tools and reconnect health. It is available only while the plugin is enabled.
Connection behavior
Instance servers connect when the plugin loads; connection and tool discovery are limited by the connect timeout. Personal remote servers connect when one of their tools is first called; their tools are advertised from the last successful discovery. If there is no saved discovery, reconnect the server to discover its tools. Personal and instance tools are exposed only to conversations allowed to use that ownership scope.
A stdio server runs a command as a local process and is restricted to instance administrators, even when marked personal. Its configured arguments are passed to that command, and its environment values are available to the process. Configure only commands you trust. If created while a managed Project is selected, it is bound to that Project and runs there. That binding cannot be changed later. Remote HTTP and SSE servers do not run a caller-supplied local command. A server name can be reused across personal and instance scopes, but not twice in one scope; an instance name cannot collide with a personal server visible to the current account.
MCP tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
AddMcpServer | Adds a server, verifies it and discovers its tools. |
ListMcpServers | Lists servers in one ownership scope without returning credentials, commands or environment values. |
ReconnectMcpServer | Reconnects one server and rediscovers its tools. |
RemoveMcpServer | Removes a server and closes its connection. |
ListMcpResources | Lists resources from connected servers and includes errors for servers that failed. |
ReadMcpResource | Reads a resource by server and URI. Text is returned as text; binary content is saved to a file. |
mcp__<server>__<tool> | Calls a tool published by a connected server. |
The /mcp picker and the MCP page both help inspect connections; servers can also be managed with these tools. AddMcpServer requires an ownership scope, either personal or instance. On the page, server-provided tool definitions can be viewed but not edited; change them on the server itself. Resource tools are read-only. When a server returns an error as content, it remains readable; connection and timeout failures are reported as tool errors.
Ownership and credentials
Personal servers belong to the linked account that created them. Only that account can manage and use them. Instance servers are shared and managed by instance administrators. Creating a personal server requires a linked account. Creating, updating, removing or reconnecting an instance server requires administrator access. The plugin is not user-grantable and enabling it does not request a separate consent prompt.
The editor shows configured environment-variable names, never their values. To add or change stdio environment values, enter them as KEY=value; leaving the field empty keeps existing values. The ListMcpServers tool does not return credentials, commands or environment values. A remote HTTP or SSE server can move between instance scope and the acting account's personal scope; a stdio server cannot change scope. Removing an account also removes its personal servers and saved tool discoveries.
Settings and limits
In Settings → Plugins, open the MCP plugin settings to set global connectTimeoutMs and callTimeoutMs values:
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Connect timeout | 15 seconds | 5–60 seconds |
| Tool call timeout | 2 minutes | 30 seconds–5 minutes |
These timeouts apply to all servers. A name must be 1–40 characters, start with a letter or number, and contain only letters, numbers, underscores or dashes. Names are unique within an ownership scope; the same name can exist once in each scope, but a personal name cannot collide with an instance server visible to that account.
HTTP and SSE addresses must use HTTP or HTTPS and cannot include credentials or secret-looking query parameters. Bridged tool names are normalized to lowercase words separated by underscores, with each server and tool name limited to 40 characters. Descriptions are limited to 2,048 characters. Returned images are resized to at most 2,000 pixels per edge for models that support vision; other non-text results are replaced with a placeholder. In a managed Project, saved binary resources are limited to 16 MiB. Values outside the configured timeout ranges are clamped to the supported range.