Remote MCP

Remote MCP is the other direction from the Elitea MCP server: instead of exposing Elitea’s tools to an external client, a Remote MCP toolkit lets an Elitea agent or pipeline call tools hosted on someone else’s MCP server. It’s listed as Remote MCP in the toolkit type picker; there is no local or stdio MCP client — only this HTTP connection.

Prerequisites

• The remote server’s URL.
• If the server requires OAuth: either nothing further (if it supports Dynamic Client Registration) or a pre-registered OAuth client ID and secret from that server’s own admin console.

Connect a remote MCP server

1. Open the toolkit type picker

   In the left navigation, open Toolkits, then select New, and choose Remote MCP.

2. Enter the server URL

   Enter the remote server’s streamable HTTP endpoint (usually ending in /mcp) and save. A same-origin redirect, such as /mcp to /mcp/, is followed; a redirect to another host is not.

3. Authorize, if required

   If the server requires OAuth, Elitea opens an authorization dialog — automatically, either now or the first time an agent tries to call one of its tools. Servers that support Dynamic Client Registration need nothing from you beyond clicking Authorize; a server that doesn’t asks for a Client ID and Client Secret first. The flow uses PKCE or OIDC depending on what the server advertises, and you can choose to remember the credentials for the session.

4. Sync tools

   Once authorized, Elitea calls the remote server’s tools/list and shows the tools it offers. Attach the toolkit to an agent or pipeline the same way as any other toolkit.

Common issues

Note

Remote MCP is a built-in Elitea type, not part of the toolkit catalogue. The worker’s MCP client speaks streamable HTTP, which is the only transport a remote server can use here anyway.

Note

The deprecated HTTP+SSE transport is not supported. A URL ending in /sse that the server refuses (many providers have retired these endpoints) fails with a message naming the endpoint and suggesting its /mcp replacement; point the toolkit at that /mcp URL instead.

Note

If you set an Authorization header (for example a personal access token) on the toolkit, it is used both when you load tools and when an agent runs, even if you have also authorized the server through the dialog. Remove the header to use the OAuth authorization instead.

Note

With caching enabled, the tool list is reused for Cache TTL seconds (60 to 3600, default 300) before the server is asked again. Each run still opens its own connection with its own credentials; only the list of tools is reused. When an agent first calls one of that server’s tools in a run, the worker lists the tools on that run’s connection once, so the call behaves exactly as an uncached one.

Note

Authorization can happen mid-conversation: if a tool call fails because the session isn’t authorized yet, Elitea shows the same authorization dialog from chat. Send your message again once it succeeds.

Note

The redirect for the OAuth flow lands on /mcp-auth-callback. If you’re testing behind a proxy or a non-default host, make sure that path is reachable at the same origin the browser used to start the flow.