Call tools on a third-party MCP server your team allowlisted. Only an allowlisted server is ever called, over https, with a time and size limit.
Connectors are optional on every plan. The Overlane-native path is Overlane’s own MCP tools; nothing in Overlane needs MCP server connected. Read how connectors work first.
Auth
A key: Bearer token for the server, if it needs one.
Set it up
- Add the server to the team’s allowlist with
overlane connector mcp add, giving its https URL (a public DNS name, not an IP address) and, if it needs one, a bearer token from an environment variable. - List its tools with
overlane connector run mcp list_tools, passing the server ID. - Call a tool with
overlane connector run mcp call_tool. A tool call is a write in the policy class, because Overlane cannot know what an arbitrary tool does.
overlane connector mcp add --name Docs --url https://mcp.example.com/mcp --secret-env DOCS_MCP_TOKEN
overlane connector show mcpThe credential is read from the environment variable (or standard input with --secret-stdin), stored in your team’s encrypted vault and never shown again. Storing, rotating or revoking a credential is in the secrets autonomy class. Revoke it with overlane connector mcp remove, which deletes the stored secret.
Actions
Run one with overlane connector run. The class says what the call needs from the autonomy gate; see the approval rule.
| Action | Kind | Autonomy class | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
list_tools |
read | none | List the tools an allowlisted server offers |
call_tool |
write | policy_change |
Call one tool on an allowlisted server |
overlane connector run mcp list_tools --input '{"serverId":"mcp_0123456789abcdef"}'Events
MCP server sends no signed events to Overlane in this connector.
Limits and content
Overlane makes at most 60 MCP server calls a minute for one team, to protect the provider’s own quota. A call over it returns 429 with Retry-After. A rate limit from the provider itself is waited out with its Retry-After and retried.
Everything MCP server returns is data, labelled untrusted_data, never instructions. If the text looks like it is written to instruct an AI reader, the label says so and the text is returned unchanged; nothing in it changes what Overlane does.
Sources
- Model Context Protocol specification
- The connector follows the provider’s documentation as of 2026-10-01.