Lovable MCP setup: custom MCP connectors
Add a custom MCP server to Lovable: the connector form, why the web app cannot reach a local server, and the desktop app route that can.
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Lovable runs in Lovable's cloud, so it can only reach an MCP server that is reachable from the internet. A daemon on 127.0.0.1 is not, and no setting inside Lovable changes that.
The Lovable desktop app is the exception: it can add a server that runs on your own computer. Both routes are below, with Scalebrowser's server as the example; any other MCP server takes the same form with its own address.
Custom MCP connectors are available on every Lovable plan. They belong to you, not to a project, and they are used in the project chat and in Chats, never in the app you publish.
Two ways to be reachable
| Way | What it means |
|---|---|
| Remote access | Our relay, with OAuth. The browser stays on your machine and no token is typed anywhere. See Remote access. |
| Tunnel your local daemon | A tunnel (Cloudflare, ngrok, Tailscale) gives your machine a public HTTPS name. Faster to set up, and it puts a full-power token on an address the whole internet can reach. |
Lovable has not been driven against our relay. Its dialog offers OAuth first, which is what remote access speaks, so it ought to work; nobody here has run it end to end, and this page says that rather than implying a measurement that does not exist.
The bearer-token path below is the one that has been walked. Which clients work carries the services that were driven against the relay with a real account.
For the tunnel, read Ports first: TLS is mandatory off loopback, and the MCP transport checks the Host header, so the public name has to be listed under [mcp] allowed_hosts in the configuration.
Add the connector
In Lovable, open Connectors, press +, and choose MCP server.
- Name the server
Anything you will recognise later, for example
Scalebrowser. - Give it the URL
The MCP path on your public daemon:
https://<your-host>/v1/mcp. Leave Connection on Direct connection. - Choose the authentication
For your own public address, pick Bearer token or API key and paste the API token. For a relay address, leave it on OAuth and let the flow run.
- Add the server
Press Add & authorize for OAuth or Add server for a token. The tools appear in the chat once the connector is saved.
If MCP server is greyed out, an administrator of your Lovable workspace has switched custom connectors off.
From the Lovable desktop app
The desktop app, for macOS and Windows, can add a server that is only reachable from your own
computer: Connectors → Local MCP servers → Custom MCP, a name, and the local address
http://127.0.0.1:8787/v1/mcp. That skips the tunnel and the relay entirely.
This route has not been driven from here. Lovable's documentation does not say whether the local form takes a bearer header, and the daemon refuses a call without one. Try it with your token; if the form has no place for it, use one of the two ways above.
On an Enterprise workspace, local servers are off until an administrator enables them.
What the agent can do now
Ask it to open a page and it will lease a profile, bind a tab and start reading. The tool set, the page map and the failure shapes are on MCP server; what the agent is allowed to do is decided by the daemon, not by the client, so see tool profiles.
A bearer token in a cloud client is a second place your full-power credential lives. It sits in Lovable's vault, and every tool call crosses the public internet to your daemon.
That is exactly what remote access avoids: through the relay the static token is never compared at all, and a token is bound to one connection's address. If you only want an agent to drive a browser on your own machine, one of the local clients is shorter still.
Run it on your own machine
Seven days to try it with your own agents on your own sites. Starting the trial needs a card.