MCP Connectors

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What are MCP connectors?

MCP connectors link external MCP servers — such as Jira, Notion, GitHub, or your own internal tools — to your NextKS organization. Once connected, the tools they expose become available in two places:

• Chat bot — Team members can use the tools by chatting with the NextKS bot in Slack or Teams
• NextKS MCP — Tools like Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor can access them through the NextKS MCP endpoint

There are two types of connectors:

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Adding a connector

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Connector settings

When creating or editing a connector, you configure the following fields:

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Name

A display name for the connector (e.g., “Jira”, “Internal Docs API”). Only letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, and spaces are allowed. The name is automatically converted to a lowercase namespace used to prefix tool names. For example, a connector named “My Jira Server” produces the namespace my_jira_server, and its tools appear as my_jira_server_create_issue, my_jira_server_search, etc.

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URL

The HTTP(S) endpoint of the MCP server. NextKS connects to this URL to discover tools and forward tool calls at runtime.

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API Key

An optional authentication key sent to the MCP server with every request. The key is encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM and is never exposed in the dashboard after saving. When editing a connector, leave this field blank to keep the existing key.

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AI Usage Notes

Optional free-text guidance (up to 1,000 characters) that tells the AI how and when to use this connector’s tools. These notes are included in the tool description that the AI model sees, so they directly influence how the model decides to use the tools. Good usage notes can significantly improve the AI’s behavior. For example:

• “Use this connector for project management queries. Always confirm with the user before creating or modifying issues.”
• “This is the company HR system. Only use it when the user explicitly asks about HR topics like leave balances or org charts.”
• “When searching, prefer short keyword queries over long sentences. Always include the project key.”

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Require tool approval

A toggle that controls whether tool calls need explicit user approval before execution. Enabled by default. When enabled, the chat bot and the NextKS MCP will ask the user to approve each tool call before it runs. This is recommended for connectors that modify data or perform sensitive actions. When disabled, tools are called automatically without approval.

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Enabling and disabling connectors

Each connector has an enable/disable toggle on its card. When you disable a connector, its tools are immediately removed from both the chat bot and the NextKS MCP. No data is lost — you can re-enable it at any time. When re-enabling, NextKS tests the connection first. If the MCP server is unreachable, the connector stays disabled and shows an error.

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Health monitoring

NextKS automatically monitors the health of all enabled connectors:

• Automatic pings — Every 5 minutes, NextKS pings each enabled connector to check if it’s responding. The result is reflected in the status badge on the connector card.
• Auto-refresh — The connectors page polls for status changes every 30 seconds, so you see updates without refreshing the page.

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Status badges

An “Unreachable” status does not disable the connector. NextKS continues to retry, and the status returns to “Connected” automatically when the server recovers.

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Tool discovery and caching

When a connector is created or re-enabled, NextKS connects to the MCP server and discovers all available tools. These tools are cached so they can be listed instantly in the chat bot and the NextKS MCP without reconnecting each time. Tool caches are refreshed automatically:

• On every successful connection test (manual or automatic)
• During the daily maintenance cycle (every 24 hours)

If a connector’s tools change on the MCP server side, you can force a refresh by toggling the connector off and on, or by editing and saving it.

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Deleting a connector

Click the delete button on a connector card. You’ll be asked to confirm before the connector and its cached tool data are permanently removed.

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Organization vs. personal connectors

When a user connects via the chat bot or the NextKS MCP, they see tools from all organization connectors plus their own personal connectors.