External MCP Servers
Status200 AI can use the tools of MCP servers outside Status200 — the ones your cloud, your code host or your own team run, such as AWS, Azure or GitHub — while it investigates and fixes incidents and alerts. Add a server once under Project Settings → AI → External MCP Servers, and Status200 AI uses it from the next incident on.
This page is about servers Status200 AI connects to. To connect an AI assistant such as Claude or Cursor to Status200 instead, see MCP Server.
Before you begin
- Status200 AI is on for the project, with an LLM provider it can use: see LLM Providers.
- The server's MCP address. Streamable HTTP and the older HTTP with SSE both work: Status200 finds out which one the server speaks when it connects.
- How Status200 signs in to it: an API token, headers of the server's own, or OAuth client credentials from your identity provider.
- A Project Owner or a Project Admin adds, changes, tests and removes servers; Project Members and Viewers can see them. On Status200 Cloud, adding a server takes the Growth plan or above.
Add a server
Open External MCP Servers
Go to Project Settings → AI → External MCP Servers and click Create External MCP Server.
Say where it is
Give it a Name, the one Status200 AI and the people reading what it did see it by, and its URL, such as
https://mcp.example.com/mcp. Under More fields, a Description says what the server is for; Status200 AI reads it to pick the right server.Choose how Status200 signs in
Pick one card under Authentication, then fill in what it asks for (see Authentication).
See what Status200 found
When you save, Status200 connects at once and the Test connection dialog says what it found: the server, how it talks, and each of its tools, marked Reads only or May change things. If it could not connect, the dialog says why and what to check.
The list of servers says how each one is doing: Connected, Can't connect (hover over it for the reason), Not checked yet or Off, and how many tools it offers. A server's page has its details, the switch that lets Status200 AI use it, and its Tools, with Test connection to connect again and read them anew. A test calls none of the server's tools.
Authentication
| Authentication | What Status200 sends | What you fill in |
|---|---|---|
| No sign-in | Nothing | Nothing. For a server that needs no sign-in, or that only your network reaches. |
| Bearer token | Authorization: Bearer <token> | Token |
| Custom headers | The headers you enter, with every request | A name and a value per header, such as X-API-Key. At most 10. |
| OAuth client credentials | A token it asks your identity provider for, as a bearer token, asking again before it expires | Token URL, Client ID and Client Secret, on a step of their own; Scope and Audience under More fields |
The token, the header values and the client secret are stored encrypted and never shown again, not even to the people who saved them. An edit starts them empty; leave one empty to keep what is stored. The server's page shows the names of the headers it sends, never their values. Changing Authentication removes the secrets the old way of signing in used.
Never put a token or a password in the URL: everyone who can read the server reads its address, and a user name or password in it is refused.
What Status200 AI does with a server
Each tool a server offers either only reads, or may change something. Status200 goes by what the server says about the tool (its readOnlyHint): a tool the server does not mark as read-only counts as one that may change something.
Which tools Status200 AI uses, and when
| Tools that only read | Tools that may change something | |
|---|---|---|
| Investigations | Used, alongside Status200's own data | Never used: Status200 refuses the call |
| Fixes | Used to work out the fix | Proposed for approval, or used right away, as the AI rule's Fix says |
In an investigation, Status200 AI lists the tools of the servers it may use and calls the ones that read, to look at what Status200 cannot see itself: your cloud account, a deployment, an issue tracker. It uses what they answer in its root cause analysis. See AI SRE.
In a fix, when a server it may use offers a tool that may change something, Status200 AI works out a fix through it, after the root cause analysis when there is one:
- Ask before fixing — each change it would make is recorded and sent nowhere. The incident's Remediation card lists them in order, each with its server, its tool and what it would send. Approve & Run makes exactly those changes, in that order, under your name; approving takes the same permission as starting a runbook. A change that fails stops the ones after it.
- Fix without asking — Status200 AI makes the changes itself, each recorded before it is sent. It does so only for a rule that names its MCP servers, when no other matching rule asks first, nothing else is already fixing the incident on its own (an AI agent on a cluster or host, or a runbook), and the rule has not made the most fixes it may make on its own in an hour; otherwise the changes are proposed. With no rule set up, or a rule that names no MCP server, every change is proposed.
A fix makes at most 5 changes. Status200 then watches the incident's monitors, as it does for every fix. Nothing is undone automatically: an MCP tool has no undo Status200 can know of, so a fix that did not work is left for a person, and the Remediation card shows what each server answered.
To stop Status200 AI using a server, turn off Let Status200 AI use this server on its page. It asks first: the server is no longer used in any investigation or fix, and a proposed fix through it can no longer be approved.
Choose the servers a rule may use
Each AI rule can name the MCP servers Status200 AI may use for what it matches. The field is MCP Servers, under More fields. Until you pick some, Status200 AI may use all of them, and the folded section says so.
- None picked — all of the project's servers that are on.
- Some picked — only those. On an AI rule that fixes without asking, naming its servers is also what lets Status200 AI make their changes without asking.
When several rules that investigate match, Status200 AI may use every server any of them allows; if the rules cannot be read, the investigation uses no MCP server at all. Each matching rule that fixes works out its own fix through its servers, and the rules that name none share one fix through all of them.
Safety
- What a server sends back is data, never instructions. Status200 AI reads its tools' descriptions and answers as text from outside Status200: they never change a rule, an approval or what Status200 AI may do.
- The address is checked on every connection. Status200 never connects to its own or a link-local address. On Status200 Cloud it also refuses private network addresses: use the server's public address. A self-hosted Status200 reaches private addresses unless
DATA_SOURCE_BLOCK_PRIVATE_ADDRESSES=trueis set. Redirects are not followed. - Limits. A project has at most 20 servers, and Status200 reads at most 200 tools of each. Connecting times out after 20 seconds, listing the tools after 30 and a tool call after 60. An answer larger than 2 MB is refused, and a run makes at most 40 calls to MCP servers.
- Every call is recorded. Each call is a step of the run, shown in its activity, and each change a fix makes is on the Remediation card with what the server answered. The model calls behind them are in Project Settings → AI → AI Logs.
Troubleshooting
Can't connect, or the test fails
The Test connection dialog says what went wrong and what to check: the address (a private address on Status200 Cloud, a host that does not answer), the sign-in (a token or headers the server refused, or a token URL that gave no token), or a URL that is not the server's MCP address. Fix the server's settings with Edit on its page, then test again.
Status200 AI does not use a server
Check that Let Status200 AI use this server is on, that the rule that matched the incident does not name other servers under More fields, and that the server's tools were read: its Tools card lists them. An investigation uses only the tools marked Reads only.