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MCP and integrations

Alfe’s integrations catalog and its MCP tool consumption are two views of the same thing. Many integrations are, under the hood, MCP servers — and installing an integration is the managed way to attach that server’s tools to your agent.

Integrations as managed MCP servers

Section titled “Integrations as managed MCP servers”

An integration bundles everything needed to turn a capability on for an agent: the tools, the account connection, and the lifecycle. For a large class of integrations, the tools are delivered by an MCP server the integration carries. When you install and activate that integration, Alfe:

  1. Connects the account. For app integrations this is the one-time OAuth authorization — you sign in to the provider and approve access. See How connecting works.
  2. Registers the MCP server for the agent and injects the credentials from that connection into it — so the server acts as your connected account, with tokens refreshed for you.
  3. Surfaces the tools. The server’s tools join the agent’s unified toolset, exactly like any other MCP server (see Use MCP servers with your agent).

You never see or edit the server configuration — the integration owns it. That’s the whole point: you get the tools and the managed credentials without wiring an MCP server by hand.

Why go through an integration

Section titled “Why go through an integration”

Compared with registering a server yourself via alfe mcp add, an integration adds:

  • Managed credentials. OAuth tokens are obtained, injected, and refreshed for you. If a required credential is missing, the tools stay off rather than failing mid-call.
  • Cloud desired state. The integration is tracked centrally, so it follows the agent across reprovisioning and respects the org / team / project / agent scopes.
  • A consistent lifecycle. Install, connect, and remove work the same across every integration, from the dashboard, the CLI, or the agent itself.

When to use a raw MCP server instead

Section titled “When to use a raw MCP server instead”

Registering your own server with alfe mcp add is the right tool when:

  • The capability you want isn’t in the integrations catalog.
  • You have an internal or third-party MCP server you want an agent to use directly.
  • You’re prototyping a server before it becomes a full integration.

The trade-off is that you manage it yourself — you supply its credentials, and it lives on the agent’s machine rather than in cloud desired state. See Add an MCP server to your agent for both paths side by side.

See also

Section titled “See also”