What are Claude connectors, and how do you add one?

Three kinds of connector

Anthropic’s help center describes a connector as something that lets Claude access your apps and services, retrieve your data and take actions in them. It gives Linear (create issues), Slack (send messages) and Google Drive (search files) as examples, and says Claude inherits each person’s permissions from the connected service: what you cannot open there, Claude cannot either.

Which kind you want depends on where the tool runs:

The directory is open from a chat (the + button at the lower left, then Connectors and Manage connectors) and from Customize > Connectors.

Add a custom connector

Anthropic’s help article gives these steps under the heading “For Pro and Max plans”. It lists Free among the plans that can add custom connectors, with the limit of one. These are its labels, read on 10 October 2026; menus move, so its page shows the current screen.

1. Open Customize > Connectors.
2. Click + Add, then Add custom connector.
3. Enter a name for the connector. This is the name you see in the connectors list.
4. Enter the connector’s remote MCP server URL and click Continue.
5. Review the authentication settings Claude detected, change them if the server needs something different, and click Continue.
6. Under Authentication, choose Sign in now, Sign in when needed or No sign in.
7. Under OAuth client, choose how Claude identifies itself to the server: its published identity (recommended), Register automatically, or your own OAuth client.
8. Under Request headers, add fixed credentials such as an API key, if the server uses one.
9. Click Add.

To use it, click the + at the lower left of a chat, open Connectors and switch the connector on for that conversation.

Team and Enterprise. The help article says only Owners and Primary Owners can add a custom connector on Team, and on Enterprise Owners, Primary Owners and people with a custom role that includes Manage access to Libraries. An owner adds it under Organization settings > Connectors (Add, hover Custom, choose Web). Members then open Customize > Connectors, find the connector, which usually carries a Custom label, and click Connect to sign in themselves.

What decides whether Claude can reach the server

Claude connects to a remote MCP server from Anthropic’s cloud, not from your device. A server on a private network or behind a firewall cannot be reached unless Anthropic’s IP addresses are allowed. A tool that exists only on your computer is a desktop extension instead.

Who approves what Claude does

• You, per conversation. The + button in a chat lists your connectors, and you choose which ones are on for that conversation.
• You, per action. Claude shows tool approval requests. Anthropic advises clicking Allow always only for a server and a tool you trust to run unsupervised.
• Your organization’s owners. On Team and Enterprise, owners can set each permission category or individual permission to Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked, for everyone in the organization. Individuals cannot override it.
• The service itself. Even when you allow a write action in Claude, a person still needs the underlying permission in the connected service, and restricting actions never grants more access than the service gives.

Anthropic warns that a malicious MCP server may include hidden instructions that try to make Claude do something you did not ask for, so connect only to servers you trust and read the permissions a connector requests.

A custom connector that publishes: Mellow Hub

Mellow Hub is a remote MCP server. You add it as a custom connector with the URL https://www.mellow.world/mcp, sign in to Mellow, and its consent screen asks what Claude may do: which of your accounts, review or autopilot, a daily limit of 1 to 1,000 posts, and access with no end date or for 1 to 365 days. Claude can then check a post against each network’s rules and publish or schedule it to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest and Facebook. The Claude guide walks through the sign-in, and can Claude post to Instagram covers one network in detail.

What has and has not been tried, as of 10 October 2026: a connector added on claude.ai in review mode published a post to Instagram after it was approved, within about a minute, and Claude’s next request was refused once the access was revoked. As of 3 October 2026 Mellow had not tested the Team and Enterprise owner flow, Cowork or the mobile apps. Hub was submitted to Anthropic’s connector directory on 2 October 2026, so for now it is a custom connector, not a directory listing.

Hub is paid: plans start at $19 a month (Solo), after a 7-day trial with a card on file that costs nothing if you cancel before it ends, and a monthly plan's first month is 20% off. Publishing is unlimited on every plan, under a fair-use ceiling that stops automated floods (900 publications a month on Solo). One publication is one post on one account, so a post sent to five networks counts as five. There are no automatic overage charges.