MCP Server Connectors

Connect any MCP server (stdio, SSE, or streamable HTTP) as a connector. Dinobase discovers the server’s read-only tools, calls them, and caches the results as JSON files exposed as DuckDB views — queryable with the same SQL interface as any other connector.

This gives you two complementary interfaces to the same MCP server:

SQL, for reads: synced data is available as connector.tool_name tables
Direct tool calls, for writes or parameterized queries: dinobase mcp call

Quick start

The easiest way to add an MCP server is through the setup UI’s registry browser:

dinobase setup

In the Add a source section, click Browse MCP registry…. This fetches the reference server list from modelcontextprotocol/servers, lets you fill in any required env vars, and writes the YAML to ~/.dinobase/connectors/<name>.yaml in one click. See the Setup UI guide for the full walkthrough.

Or use the CLI directly:

# stdio (local process)
dinobase connector create posthog_mcp \
  --transport stdio \
  --command "npx -y @posthog/mcp-server"

# SSE
dinobase connector create my_server \
  --transport sse \
  --url "https://server/sse"

# Streamable HTTP
dinobase connector create my_server \
  --transport streamable_http \
  --url "https://server/mcp"

dinobase sync posthog_mcp
dinobase query "SELECT * FROM posthog_mcp.list_projects LIMIT 10"

Connector YAML format

Configs live at ~/.dinobase/connectors/<name>.yaml. The transport block is what distinguishes an MCP connector from a custom REST connector:

name: posthog_mcp
description: "PostHog MCP server"
mode: live  # live | sync (default: live for MCP)

transport:
  type: stdio        # stdio | sse | streamable_http
  command: npx
  args:
    - "-y"
    - "@posthog/mcp-server"

# Optional: only sync these specific tools.
# Default: all read-only tools are auto-discovered.
tools:
  - list_projects
  - list_feature_flags

For SSE and streamable HTTP, use url instead of command/args:

transport:
  type: sse
  url: "https://my-mcp-server.example.com/sse"
  headers:
    Authorization: "Bearer my_token"

How read-only tools are selected

When syncing, Dinobase only calls tools that are safe to call without context:

User allowlist — if tools: is set in the YAML, only those tools are called
MCP ToolAnnotations — tools with readOnlyHint: true are included; destructiveHint: true are excluded
Name heuristics — tools starting with list_, get_, search_, read_, or fetch_ are included; tools starting with create_, update_, delete_, set_, send_, remove_, or put_ are excluded
Required parameters — tools with required parameters are skipped (they can’t be called without context)

Calling tools directly

Use dinobase mcp call for tools that need arguments or for write operations:

# Browse available tools
dinobase mcp servers --pretty
dinobase mcp info posthog_mcp --pretty
dinobase mcp search "dashboard" --pretty

# Call a tool with arguments
dinobase mcp call posthog_mcp.dashboard-get '{"id": 1118504}'

Or use the Python API:

from dinobase.mcp import call, search

result = call("posthog_mcp.dashboard-get", id=1118504)
matches = search("dashboard")

Transport types