claude.ai remote MCP setup

Neotoma with Claude · Remote setup for connecting Neotoma to claude.ai.

Setup

claude.ai connects to MCP servers over the network. Start with local install, then configure remote access:

Install a tunnel provider — Neotoma's --tunnel flag needs either ngrok or Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared) installed on your machine. Install one:
```
# ngrok (via Homebrew)
brew install ngrok
ngrok config add-authtoken <YOUR_NGROK_TOKEN>

# — or Cloudflare Tunnel —
brew install cloudflared
```
ngrok requires a free account and auth token from dashboard.ngrok.com. You can set the token as an environment variable instead of running ngrok config:
```
# In your shell profile or .env
export NGROK_AUTHTOKEN=<YOUR_NGROK_TOKEN>
```
Cloudflare Tunnel works without an account for quick tunnels. If both providers are installed, Neotoma auto-detects which to use; pass --tunnel-provider ngrok or --tunnel-provider cloudflare to choose explicitly.
Start the API server with a tunnel — the --tunnel flag auto-provisions a public HTTPS URL via ngrok or Cloudflare (whichever is installed)
```
neotoma api start --env prod --tunnel
```
The tunnel URL is printed to the console and written to /tmp/ngrok-mcp-url.txt. You can also use a reverse proxy or your own domain instead of --tunnel.
Connect in claude.ai — go to Settings → MCP Servers and add your tunnel URL (for example https://<tunnel-host>/mcp). Claude authenticates via OAuth; the Neotoma API supports the MCP OAuth authorization flow.

Use the tunnel URL, not a custom domain. When you run with --tunnel (Cloudflare or ngrok), set the MCP server URL in Claude to the exact tunnel URL printed at startup (e.g. https://<tunnel-host>/mcp). Do not use a custom domain that points elsewhere (e.g. your own HTTPS host). Traffic must hit the same process that is serving the tunnel; otherwise Connect will fail and you will not see requests in neotoma api logs.

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