Using MCP with Shortwave

Shortwave supports MCP which is a powerful way to integrate all of your favorite tools and services with the Shortwave AI Assistant. For example, you can use an MCP server to connect to tools like Notion, Asana, HubSpot, Zapier, and Salesforce.

What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open protocol that standardizes how AI models can access and interact with external applications. Think of it as a plugin system for AI.

Configuring MCP

Shortwave comes with a set of preconfigured integrations and has support both local and remote MCP servers.

Setting up a remote MCP server

1. Go to the AI integrations page in the Shortwave app
2. Click on Add custom integration
3. Select Remote MCP server
4. Give your server a name and enter the URL of your MCP server. This should be the URL of the server's MCP endpoint. For example, https://mymcpserver.com/sse
5. Click Save
6. Toggle the switch to enable the server. If necessary, follow the steps to authorize the server with your third-party service
7. If successful, you will see a green dot in the integration card

Setting up a local MCP server

Note: Local MCP servers are only supported in the Shortwave desktop app.

1. Go to the AI integrations page in the Shortwave app
2. Click on Add custom integration
3. Select Local MCP server
4. Give you server a name, and provide the command, arguments and optional environment variables. Refer to the documentation for your MCP server for the correct command and arguments
5. Click Save
6. Toggle the switch to enable the server.
7. If successful, you will see a green dot in the integration card

Troubleshooting local MCP servers

1. Make sure you have the latest version of the Shortwave desktop app
2. Check the logs for any errors by opening ~/Library/Logs/Shortwave/main.log (Mac) or %APPDATA%\Shortwave\logs\main.log (Windows). General setup logs are tagged with mcp and server-specific logs are tagged with mcp-server/<server-name>

Limitations

• MCP support is still in beta
• Local MCP servers are not synced between devices and only available in the desktop app
• Integrations are only available on the Shortwave Business, Premier, or Max plans
• MCP support is limited to tool calls. Resources, prompts, sampling are not supported
• Shortwave will only support a limited number of tools (currently 40) at once
• Adding many tools may degrade the performance of the Shortwave Assistant

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