Quickstart

Get MCPGate connected to your AI client in under 90 seconds. Follow these five steps to go from zero to a working MCP endpoint.

1

Sign Up

Go to mcpgate.sh, click Get Started Free, and create your account. No credit card required — the free tier gives you access to all connectors with standard rate limits.

2

Connect a Service

Click Connectorsin the sidebar. You'll see a grid of available services. Click Connect on Gmail — or any other service — and complete the OAuth flow. MCPGate stores your token in an AES-256-GCM encrypted vault; it never leaves your MCPGate account.

Connectors page showing available services with Connect buttons
3

Create an MCP App

Go to MCP Apps and click Create App. Give it a descriptive name that matches the client you'll connect, such as Claude Desktop or Cursor — Work. Each app gets its own API key and its own independent guardrail policy, so different clients can have different levels of access.

Create MCP App dialog with name field and connector selection
4

Configure Guardrails

On your new app, open the Guardrails tab. Toggle individual tools on or off, and add rules from the template library — keyword blockers, PII filters, rate limits, and more.

Tip

Start with read-only access. You can always add write permissions later. For Gmail, enable gmail_list_messages and gmail_get_message first, and add gmail_send_email only when you're confident in your guardrail rules.
Guardrails tab showing allow/deny rules for tools
5

Paste into Your AI Client

Copy the MCP endpoint URL from the app's Overviewtab, then paste it into your AI client's MCP configuration. For Claude Desktop, add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json file, replacing YOUR_API_KEY with the key shown in your app:

claude_desktop_config.json
json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcpgate": {
      "url": "https://api.mcpgate.sh/mcp/YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. Your connected services will appear as available tools. The AI can now call them — subject to the guardrails you configured.

Claude Desktop config file with the MCPGate endpoint URL

Other clients

Setting up Cursor, Claude Code, or ChatGPT? See the Client Setup section for client-specific instructions.