MCP Hub

The MCP hub is where you connect oHallo to your business systems. It is where you add, manage, and monitor the connections that let agents look up orders, check inventory, create quotes, and carry out other work in your external tools.

The MCP hub is a top-level item in the sidebar under Capabilities.

What is MCP?

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for the assistant to communicate with external tools and data sources. Think of it as a universal adapter: instead of building a custom connection for every system, MCP provides a single, consistent way for oHallo’s agents to work with any connected service.

Each MCP connection provides a set of tools that agents can call. A store connection might provide tools such as “search_orders”, “get_product”, and “get_customer”. When an agent needs order information, it calls the right tool, and the connection handles the communication with the underlying system.

Types of MCP connections

oHallo supports different kinds of MCP connections, each suited to different needs:

Type	What it is	Setup
System	Built-in connections provided by oHallo for core capabilities such as knowledge base queries, policy lookups, calendar operations, and CRM access.	Always active. Cannot be removed.
Catalogue	Pre-built connections for popular business tools.	Guided setup from the Browse tab, using OAuth or an API key.
Custom	Connections to MCP servers you build and host yourself.	Manual configuration with an endpoint URL, an auth type, and credentials.

System connections appear automatically. Everything else is added from the MCP hub, described below.

The MCP hub page

Open the MCP hub from the sidebar. The page has two tabs:

• Installed shows your active connections, with each connection’s name, scope, and status.
• Browse is a catalogue of connections you can add.

Browsing connectors

The Browse tab shows the available connections, grouped by category. Use the filter buttons at the top to narrow by type, for example CRM, E-commerce, ERP, Finance, Logistics, Product, Support, Project, or Productivity. Select All to see everything.

The first card, Custom MCP, lets you connect any system that exposes an MCP endpoint, even if it does not appear in the catalogue.

Browsing and adding connections all happen here in the MCP hub. There is no separate page for it.

Connecting an MCP server step by step

Step 1 - Choose a connection

Select Add MCP server in the top-right corner. You will see the picker:

You have two options:

• Start from a catalogue connection. Select a pre-built card. Some configuration is filled in for you.
• Custom MCP. Select Add custom to connect any MCP server manually.

Step 2 - Configure the connection

After you choose a connection, the configuration form appears:

Fill in the following fields:

Field	Description
Name	A label to identify this connection, such as “Production store” or “Warehouse API”. Choose something your team will recognise.
Endpoint URL	The address of the MCP server. Your IT team or the service provider supplies this. It is an https address, such as https://your-system.example.com/mcp.
Scope	Controls who can use this connection. Choose one of the levels described under “Connection scope” below.
Auth type	How oHallo authenticates with the server. Options include None for a public endpoint, API key for a single key or token, OAuth2 client credentials for a client ID and secret that oHallo exchanges for a token, and mTLS for certificate-based auth.

If you select an auth type that needs credentials, additional fields appear.

Step 3 - Test and continue

Select Test & continue. oHallo attempts to connect to the server, verify the credentials, and retrieve the list of available tools. If the test fails, check the endpoint URL and credentials.

Step 4 - Assign tools

After a successful test, you see the tools the MCP server provides. Review the tool names and descriptions to confirm the connection is correct, then assign each tool to the agent that should use it, or choose to assign them later. Save to finish.

The connection now appears on the Installed tab and its tools are available to the agents you assigned.

Connection status

Each connection shows one of three statuses:

Status	Meaning
Active	The connection is working normally. Agents can call its tools.
Degraded	The connection is partly failing. Some tool calls may fail or be slow. Check the underlying system.
Unreachable	The connection is offline. Agents cannot call any of its tools. Check the server URL and credentials.

Connection scope

When you add a connection, you choose its scope. This controls which parts of your organisation can use it:

Scope	Who can use it	When to choose
Organisation	All brands and workspaces	The system is shared across your entire organisation, such as a single ERP.
Brand	All workspaces within a specific brand	Different brands use different systems, such as a separate store per brand.
Workspace	Only a specific workspace	Regional teams use different systems, such as an EU warehouse and a US warehouse.

Tools provided by connections

Each connection exposes a set of tools that agents can call. To see the full list for any connection, select it on the Installed tab. Common tool types include:

• Lookup tools that retrieve information, such as “get_order”, “search_products”, and “get_customer”.
• Action tools that carry out operations, such as “create_quote”, “update_status”, and “send_notification”.
• Search tools that find records by keyword or filter, such as “search_orders” and “find_invoices”.

When you create agents under Agents, you select which MCP connections each agent can use and which specific tools it may call, so every agent has access only to the tools it needs. To control individual tool calls further, see Guardrails.

Managing existing connections

To view or edit a connection, select it on the Installed tab. From the detail page you can:

• View the tools the connection provides.
• Check its status and the last successful call.
• Update the endpoint URL or credentials.
• Change the scope.
• Set risk and guardrails on individual tools. See Guardrails.
• Write agent instructions: standing guidance on the connection, such as which unit an amount field is in. The assistant reads them before it uses the connection’s tools, and keeps them beside the connection’s records when it writes and checks a reply. Instructions hold up to 8 KB.
• Review the connection’s version history. See History, publish, and restore.
• Delete the connection, which removes it from any agents that use it.

Connecting over the API

A custom connection can also be set up with an API key, so a partner or an AI tool can wire an account to its business systems without opening the dashboard: registering the connection, testing it, assigning its tools to an agent and removing that access again, classifying each tool’s risk, setting the assurance it requires, and adding guardrails. Grant the key the MCP hub: read and MCP hub: write scopes, and the Agents: write scope for the assignment steps. Catalogue connectors are installed and reconnected from the Browse tab here. See MCP Connections on the developer site.

A key restricted to a brand or workspace works within that restriction. oHallo’s own system connections are configured by oHallo, so a key does not change their instructions or their tools’ risk settings, but it does set their guardrails, the assurance a tool requires, and which agents may use them, exactly as you would here.