Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for sharing context between AI models and data systems.

The Observe MCP Server lets agentic tools such as Cortex Code, Augment, Cursor, Claude Code, and Claude Desktop connect securely to your Observe tenant so they can investigate incidents, or explore logs, metrics or traces.

OAuth authentication for the MCP Server

The MCP Server connects with your AI tools using OAuth authentication so that your tools can access the Observe platform without Observe ever seeing or storing your credentials.

The following diagram shows how this works.

sequenceDiagram
    participant A as AI Agent / Client
    participant M as MCP Server
    participant B as User Browser
    participant I as Identity Provider

    A->>M: (1) Use Tool?
    M-->>A: Requires Auth

    A->>B: (2) Need Token
    B->>I: (3) Login / Consent
    I-->>B: Authentication Complete

    I-->>A: (4) Auth Code

    A->>I: (5) Exchange Code
    I-->>A: Access Token

    A->>M: (6) Bearer JWT
    M-->>A: Success!

Configure the Observe MCP server

Perform the following steps to configure the MCP server in Observe:

Click on your user name in the left navigation rail and select Manage account.
Click MCP Server details.
Pick the tool you want to connect to the Observe MCP server, then follow the instructions. The instruction vary depending on the tool you choose. For example, for Claude desktop, click the link to Claude desktop MCP docs and then provide the JSON configuration.
Restart your tool.
Start asking questions! For example: What are the top 5 errors in my application?

Troubleshooting

When configuring Cursor, you may see the following messages in your Cursor's MCP list:

[error] No server info found
[info] Handling ListOfferings action, server stored: false 
[info] Server not yet created, returning empty offerings
[info] Handling GetInstructions action

If you do, run the following commands to clear the NPX cache, then restart your Cursor app:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx  
npm cache clean --force