How to build your own MCP server

A complete walkthrough — database, schema, config, token, client — that ends with Claude querying your own data. No SDK, no Node project, no server to host.

Step 1 — Get a Postgres database

If you already have one, skip ahead. If not, any of these work and all have a usable free tier:

Step 2 — Create the schema

Three tables. Only one of them is your data:

Step 3 — Set two variables

In the Air Pipe dashboard, under your environment's managed variables (or as ap_vars if you're self-hosting):

Step 4 — Write the config

Here's the whole thing. One file, two tools.

Step 5 — Deploy

On managed Air Pipe, paste the file into the dashboard editor and hit deploy — that validates it on the way in. If you're using the Air Pipe MCP tools from your own AI client, "validate and deploy this config" does the same from the chat, and installing the pack (below) does it without either.

Step 6 — Mint a token

Once, at jwt.io: algorithm HS256, secret = your SOLO_SECRET, payload:

Step 7 — Verify it before you touch the client

Debugging through an MCP client is miserable — a failure shows up as "the tool didn't work." Check with curl first. MCP is JSON-RPC over HTTP, so you can drive it directly:

Step 8 — Point Claude at it

Claude Desktop keeps this at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claudedesktopconfig.json on macOS and %APPDATA%\Claude\claudedesktopconfig.json on Windows. Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http my-tasks https://your-airpipe-host/<org>/<env>/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <token>".

Give the server a name, not just tools

Every client calls initialize before it lists anything, and that response is where the server says who it is. Skip it and yours introduces itself with a built-in name and no description — a listing that's a bare label above a wall of tool descriptions. That's what mcp_servers at the top of the config fixes:

The hole most MCP servers have

Worth knowing regardless of what you build with: tools/call runs your code, tools/list doesn't.

Now the part that matters: your customers

Everything above is one token, one grant — everyone who holds it sees every row. Right for pointing an AI at your own database. Useless the moment you have users.

The shortcut

Everything on this page ships as one pack, both tiers, tested end to end — the schema, the seed endpoint, the single-token tools, the tenant-scoped tools, the discovery gate, the token lifecycle routes, and the OIDC variant. Fork it, set two variables, deploy.

Related packs

• MCP Postgres Starter — Turn your Postgres data into secure MCP tools any AI client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor) can call. Two-tier auth: one shared token for yourself, or per-user tenant-scoped tokens for your customers - minted via an HS256 exchange or verified directly against your OIDC provider's JWKS (Auth0, Clerk, Cognito). Every tool reuses the same in-config token checks as a normal Air Pipe route. Tool discovery (tools/list) is gated behind the same per-user token via list_authorizer, so unauthenticated clients cannot enumerate your tools or their input schemas (engine >= 1.7.0).
• MCP Quickstart — The smallest useful MCP server: two tools over one Postgres table, guarded by a single shared token, in one config file. Point Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client at your database with no SDK, no Node project and nothing to host. An Air Pipe interface is an HTTP route; add an mcp block and the same interface is also an MCP tool, secured by the same in-config token check. Tool discovery (tools/list) is gated by that same token via list_authorizer, so an unauthenticated client cannot even enumerate your tools or their input schemas. Includes a seed endpoint that creates the table and sample data in one curl.