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MCP tools let the ParleHub agent do things outside a conversation — look up a ticket in Jira, query an internal knowledge base, call your own service — by connecting it to an MCP server (an external service that speaks the Model Context Protocol). Setting one up has two levels, and both are deliberate:
  1. Register the server once for your organization. You supply its URL and how it authenticates. Only Org Admins can do this, so project members cannot point the agent at arbitrary external services.
  2. Enable it per project. A registered tool is available to nothing until you switch it on for a specific project — so a tool that reaches sensitive systems can be limited to the projects that should have it.
ParleHub calls the MCP server from the server side, never from anyone’s browser, and the credentials you store are never sent to a client.
You’ll need: to be an Org Admin in ParleHub, the MCP server’s HTTPS URL, and whatever it needs for authentication (an API key or token, or an OAuth 2.0 application at the provider).

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Part 1 — Register an MCP server

You tell ParleHub where the MCP server lives and how to authenticate to it. Before saving, ParleHub checks the URL is safe and that the server actually answers — so a typo or a firewalled server is caught now rather than mid-conversation.
1

Open MCP Tools settings

Go to Organization Settings → MCP Tools and select Add tool.
2

Choose Generic MCP Tool

This connects any MCP-compatible server.
3

Describe the server

  • Name — a friendly name your team will recognize in the project tool list (e.g. Jira MCP).
  • Description — optional; a short note on what this tool lets the agent do.
  • Server URL — the MCP server’s HTTPS base URL, e.g. https://mcp.example.com.
4

Choose how the server authenticates

See Part 2. Pick API key or token in a header if you already hold a key, or OAuth 2.0 if the provider wants you to approve access instead.
5

Register the tool

Select Register tool.

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What ParleHub checks before saving

  • The URL must be HTTPS. Plain http:// is rejected.
  • The URL must not point to a private, internal, or loopback address — localhost, 10.x, 192.168.x, link-local, and cloud metadata addresses are all refused, including when a public-looking hostname resolves to one. This protects your cloud environment from being reached through the agent.
  • The server must answer a quick connection check within a few seconds. If it does not, you will see “MCP server is not reachable” or “MCP server did not respond within the timeout”, and nothing is saved.
Registering, editing, rotating secrets on, and removing MCP tools is Org Admin only.

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Part 2 — Authentication

Choose the option that matches what the provider gives you.
Use this when you already hold a key or token from the provider and it is sent on every request.
  1. With API key or token in a header selected, use Add header for each header the server expects.
  2. Enter the header name (e.g. Authorization or X-Api-Key) and its value (e.g. Bearer abc123…).
  3. Tick Secret for anything that is a credential. A secret value is stored in your organization’s vault and cannot be viewed again after saving — only replaced.
  4. Select Register tool.
To replace a key later, find the header on the tool’s card and select Rotate secret, enter the new value, and select Save. The old value is superseded immediately.

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Two OAuth states that need your attention

ParleHub renews access automatically, but two states do not resolve themselves:

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Part 3 — Enable a tool on a project

Registering a tool makes it available to your organization; it does nothing until you enable it on a project. Only then can the agent see and call it in that project’s conversations.
1

Open the project's Tools tab

Open the project and go to the Tools tab.
2

Find the tool

Every tool registered for your organization is shown, with its server URL underneath.
3

Toggle it on

The change takes effect on the next message; there is nothing to save.
Toggle it off at any time to remove it from that project. Everyone on the project sees the same list — project members and Project Admins can see which tools are enabled (shown as Enabled / Disabled), but only an Org Admin can change the toggles.
MCP tools work in project conversations only. Personal conversations have no project, so they get neither MCP tools nor file tools.

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Part 4 — Using the tool in a conversation

Once a tool is enabled, the agent discovers what it can do automatically — you do not describe the tool to it. Ask for what you want in plain language (“what’s the status of ticket ABC-123?”) and the agent decides whether to use it. While a tool call is in flight the message shows a short activity line — an external tool can take tens of seconds. If a tool is unreachable or its credentials have stopped working, the agent is told the call failed and carries on with the rest of the turn — one broken tool costs a tool call, not the conversation.

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What gets recorded

Every call is written to your organization’s audit log against the user, the conversation and the tool. The record covers what happened, not what was said: the tool’s name and category, whether it succeeded, failed or was cancelled, how long it took, and the size of the request and response. The request and response payloads themselves are deliberately never stored. A tool’s arguments routinely contain your own documents, and ordinary writes to the audit log are rejected — so keeping payloads there would put a second copy of your content somewhere ParleHub’s own deletion paths cannot reach.

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Part 5 — Maintaining a registered tool

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Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Contact ParleHub support with your organization name, the tool’s name, and the MCP server URL you are connecting.