Skip to main content

​
What is MCP Gateway?

MCP Gateway provides a centralized control plane for managing MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers across your organization. It sits between your MCP clients (like Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code) and your MCP servers, providing enterprise-grade authentication, access control, and observability.
MCP Gateway works with any MCP-compatible client including Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and custom implementations.

​
Key Benefits

MCP Gateway solves critical challenges when deploying MCP servers at scale:

​
Single Authentication Layer

Users authenticate once at the gateway level. Your MCP servers receive verified requests without managing individual credentials.
  • Centralized user authentication
  • No need to distribute API keys to each server
  • Automatic token refresh and session management
  • Support for SSO and identity providers

​
Granular Access Control

Control which teams and users can access specific servers and tools:
  • Role-based access control (RBAC)
  • Team-level permissions
  • Tool-level access restrictions
  • Instant access revocation

​
Complete Observability

Every tool call is logged with full context:
  • Who called which tool
  • Request parameters and responses
  • Latency and performance metrics
  • Error tracking and debugging

​
Identity Forwarding

Automatically forward user context to your MCP servers:
  • User email and team information
  • Custom roles and attributes
  • Organizational metadata
  • Contextual permissions

​
Architecture

MCP Gateway uses a proxy architecture that transparently sits between clients and servers: 
MCP Client (Claude, Cursor, etc.)
        ↓
  MCP Gateway (Authentication, Authorization, Logging)
        ↓
  MCP Servers (Your tools and resources)

​
How It Works

  1. Client Connection: MCP client connects to the gateway instead of directly to servers
  2. Authentication: Gateway validates user credentials and issues session tokens
  3. Authorization: Gateway checks user permissions before forwarding requests
  4. Request Forwarding: Authorized requests are forwarded to appropriate MCP servers with user context
  5. Response Logging: All requests and responses are logged for observability
  6. Response Return: Server responses flow back through gateway to client

​
Use Cases

​
Enterprise MCP Deployment

Deploy MCP servers across your organization with centralized control:
  • Manage access for hundreds of developers
  • Enforce security policies
  • Track usage and costs
  • Monitor performance

​
Multi-Tenant MCP Services

Provide MCP services to multiple customers:
  • Isolate customer data and access
  • Bill based on usage
  • Provide customer-specific tools
  • Monitor per-customer metrics

​
Regulated Industries

Meet compliance requirements for AI tool usage:
  • Audit trail for all AI interactions
  • Data privacy and residency controls
  • User consent and approval workflows
  • Compliance reporting

​
Getting Started

Quick Start

Get started with MCP Gateway in minutes

Authentication

Configure authentication for your gateway

Access Control

Set up team and user permissions

API Reference

Explore the complete API documentation

​
Supported Clients

MCP Gateway works with any client that implements the Model Context Protocol:
  • Claude Desktop: Anthropic’s desktop application
  • Cursor: AI-powered code editor
  • VS Code: Via MCP extension
  • Custom Clients: Any MCP-compatible implementation
The gateway is protocol-compliant and doesn’t require client-side modifications. Simply point your existing MCP clients to the gateway endpoint.

​
Next Steps

Ready to deploy MCP Gateway? Follow our quickstart guide to get up and running:

Quickstart Guide

Set up your first MCP Gateway in under 10 minutes

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us