Quickstart
In five minutes you'll register a cloud MCP server with ScaiGrid, see its tools auto-discovered, and invoke one. This path uses the cloud registry rather than the desktop bridge because it needs nothing on your machine but a terminal.
You need:
- A ScaiGrid API key with
scailink:remote.manage_own(tenant admins have it by default). - The URL of a reachable MCP server speaking
streamable_httporsse. A public test server, your own deployment, or a third party. - The credential the server needs — bearer token, API key headers, or nothing for an open server.
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1. Register the server#
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Registration triggers an immediate discovery handshake against the endpoint. If the server is reachable, status is active and tool rows are populated. If unreachable, the registration still saves with status: "error" — fix the network or credentials and call refresh rather than re-registering.
2. List discovered capabilities#
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The detail response includes capabilities, credential_fields, credential_oldest_days, and consecutive_failures. Capabilities is the list of tools, resources, and prompts that the server advertised during discovery.
3. Re-discover on demand#
If you've changed something on the server side and want fresh capability rows immediately rather than waiting for the 15-minute cron:
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This re-runs the handshake, upserts capability rows, and resets the failure streak on success.
4. Invoke a tool through ScaiMCP#
Once registered, the server's tools appear in the ScaiMCP catalog under remote.{user_id}.{slug}.{tool_name} for personal scope, or remote.tenant.{slug}.{tool_name} for tenant-shared scope. Any ScaiGrid surface that consumes MCP (agents, chat, ScaiCore runs) sees them.
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ScaiLink resolves the namespaced name back to the registered server, fetches its credentials, opens (or reuses) a session, and forwards the call.
5. Rotate a credential#
When the upstream credential needs replacing — token expired, rotated by your security policy — rotate it in place. The server keeps its id; capability rows and namespaced tool names don't churn.
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The PUT is idempotent on (server, field) — overwriting an existing credential overwrites both ciphertext and DEK.
What just happened#
- A row landed in
mod_scailink_remote_serverfor your server; credentials went tomod_scailink_remote_credentialencrypted with the platform KEK. - ScaiLink opened the server, called
tools/list/resources/list/prompts/list, and wrote one capability row per item. - The discovery cron now refreshes you on its 15-minute cadence, with a per-tenant budget of 10 servers per tick.
- Your tool names are namespaced so they can't collide with another tenant's registration of the same display name.
Next#
- Cloud MCP registry — scope, namespacing, credentials, health, session pool, rotation hygiene.
- Architecture — how the bridge and the registry fit into the agent runtime.
- Run a desktop session — bridge a local MCP server instead of a hosted one.
- Register a cloud MCP server — tenant-shared scope, multi-header auth,
forward_user_id, customconsent_tier.