oAuth Flow from ClaudeDesktop

[harry-agent-care]

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Question Category

• Protocol Specification
• SDK Usage
• Server Implementation
• General Implementation
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Your Question

This is the flow I am trying to build and wondering if Claude desktop suports it.

• My MCP server tool need to access an external secure API using oAuth2 flow (auth code or implict grant flow)
• I created an express callback server in my MCP server for oauth2 callbacks
  Question is: Can Claude Desktop pop up the oauth login dialog so user can authenticate and grant access to the external resources. Typically this is done in standalone web apps. I asked Calude and it said by returning the resposne below so Claude desktop will pop up the oAuth login for the external API. I tried it but didn't work. It just displayed it.
  return { type: "auth_required", content: [{ type: "text", text: JSON.stringify({ url: authorizationUri, state }) }] };

[jspahrsummers]

There's no support for OAuth right now, as authentication itself has not been standardized with MCP. I suggest following along with that discussion and its links. 👀

[harry-agent-care]

I managed to build a oauth2 (code grant) flow by opening a browser window from Claude desktop on an MCP Tool invocation, and perform user login to the external API service, authenticate and get the token dynamically and use it for subsequent API calls to fetch the data that the MCP server needs.