Local MCP servers

MCP servers extend what your workers can do — each one is a small program askTheodor launches in the background, and the tools it exposes show up for your workers to use.

What you’ll learn

• What MCP is and how askTheodor runs a server.
• How to add one from a preset or as a custom server.
• How to test the connection and grant the tools to a worker.

What is MCP?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for giving AI tools. A server is a process that speaks the protocol and advertises tools; askTheodor is the client — it starts the server and lets your workers call its tools.

Add a server

1. Open Settings → MCP servers.
2. Presets (one click): a long row of + Name buttons covers Filesystem, Fetch, GitHub, SQLite, Brave Search, Gmail, Notion, Linear, Slack, Postgres, Stripe, and more. Click one, fill in any blank secret, and save.
3. Custom server: + Add custom server opens a blank form — a Command (npx, python3, docker, or an absolute path), Args one per line, and Env (KEY=VALUE) for tokens.
4. Click Test connection before saving — askTheodor starts the server and lists every tool it discovers, so you can confirm your command and tokens are right.

Grant the tools

Tools are namespaced <server-id>__<tool> and don’t activate per worker automatically. Open a worker’s Skills tab and add only the ones it needs.

Servers run real programs on your machine

An MCP server is an actual subprocess with whatever access you give it. Only add servers you trust, and scope their tokens narrowly (a read-only key, a limited IAM user).

Pair servers with the right worker

Give your research worker Brave Search and Fetch; give an ops worker GitHub and Linear. A focused toolset makes a worker faster and cheaper.

Recap

You added a local MCP server from a preset or by hand, tested it, and handed its tools to a specific worker. Next, skip the subprocess entirely and mount hosted servers straight from a directory.

➡️ Next: The remote connector directory