Connect Claude Desktop

Connecting Claude Desktop (or Cursor, ChatGPT-with-MCP, or any other MCP-compatible client) lets you ask an external LLM about your Dalea workspace using its full context window and tool-use loop. The setup takes about three minutes.

The flow at a glance:

1. Add server in your client config: claude mcp add --transport http dalea https://dalea.app/mcp
2. OAuth challenge — your browser opens Dalea's authorisation page.
3. Pick workspace — select which workspace the client should see.
4. Token issued — short-lived bearer token with mcp:read and (optionally) mcp:write.
5. Tool calls start flowing — every call is rate-limited and audited.

Prerequisites

• A Dalea account with at least Viewer role on the workspace you want to expose.
• Claude Desktop (≥ v1.5) or any other MCP client with HTTP transport support.
• Your workspace URL — for cloud users this is https://dalea.app/mcp. Enterprise customers should use the URL provided by their administrator.

Step-by-step

1. Add the MCP server in Claude Desktop

   Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → MCP. Paste:

   claude mcp add --transport http dalea https://dalea.app/mcp

   Or edit your ~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json manually:

   {
   "mcpServers": {
     "dalea": {
       "transport": "http",
       "url": "https://dalea.app/mcp"
     }
   }
   }

2. Trigger the OAuth flow

   Restart Claude Desktop. Ask Claude something that requires a Dalea tool ("list my Dalea workspaces"). A browser window opens.

3. Authorise and pick a workspace

   Sign in to Dalea if you aren't already. The consent screen lists the scopes Claude is asking for: mcp:read, mcp:write. Pick the workspace you want Claude to see, and the role you want Claude to act as (default: your own role; you can downgrade to Viewer for a "look but don't touch" experience).

4. The token is issued

   Dalea issues a short-lived bearer token with automatic refresh support. Claude stores both. From here on, every tool call carries this token; the server independently re-checks workspace scope and role on every call.

5. Try a real query

   Back in Claude Desktop, ask:

   • "List my Dalea workspaces."
   • "Find all animals in study DLA-7 with baseline weight under 22 g."
   • "Summarise the latest result batch in the cytokines table."
   • "Open the protocol for plasma collection."

   Claude will invoke MCP tools (data_objects.search, document_blocks.outline, etc.) and stream tool results into its response.

Tool catalogue (selected)

Claude sees roughly 70 tools across these groups:

Destructive actions are deliberately absent. Creating a new document or deleting an item must happen in the in-app chat or in the UI, where you approve them.

Security model

Token lifetime

Short-lived. Auto-refreshed on first call after expiry; revoked on logout from Dalea.

Audience

Tokens are bound to the originating MCP client. They will not work elsewhere.

Workspace scope

Single workspace per token. Switching workspaces in Claude requires a new authorisation.

Audit

Every tool call logged with correlation ID, response hash, and resource IDs.

Rate limits

Per-user, per-workspace token budgets. Overage returns a clear error.

Troubleshooting

• "Authentication required" loops. Likely a clock skew between Claude and your Dalea tenant. Check NTP.
• Tools not appearing. Some clients cache the tool list. Quit and reopen the client.
• Slow first call. Cold-start the MCP server can be ~1.5 s on small instances; subsequent calls are ~80 ms.

What's next