Connect an agent

Point your agent at https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp and authenticate with your Proto API key as a Bearer token. New here? Start with the introduction.

Get your API key

Create a key in the Proto dashboard under Settings → API keys, then make it available to your shell:

export PROTO_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Programmatic access — including the MCP server — requires a verified email on your workspace.

Connect your agent

Each agent points at the same URL and sends your key in the Authorization header. Pick yours:

claude mcp add --transport http proto-bio https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $PROTO_API_KEY"

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "proto-bio": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${PROTO_API_KEY}" }
    }
  }
}

.cursor/mcp.json — same shape, but Cursor’s env interpolation uses ${env:VAR}:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "proto-bio": {
      "url": "https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:PROTO_API_KEY}" }
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json — the top-level key is servers, and secrets come from inputs:

{
  "inputs": [
    { "type": "promptString", "id": "proto-api-key", "description": "Proto API key", "password": true }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "proto-bio": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${input:proto-api-key}" }
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.proto-bio]
url = "https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "PROTO_API_KEY"

~/.gemini/settings.json — note the httpUrl key:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "proto-bio": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer $PROTO_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Verify the connection

In a Claude Code session, run /mcp. You should see proto-bio · Connected with a tool count above zero.

Showing 0 tools or authentication failed? The Bearer token is missing or wrong — recheck the Authorization header.

Make your first call

Talk to your agent in plain language — it picks the right tool. The cleanest first call confirms your key end to end:

You: Check my Proto workspace and remaining credits.

The agent calls whoami and returns your workspace, scopes, and credit balance. From there, ask it to find and run a tool, or design and run an optimization — see what you can do.

Troubleshooting

0 tools / authentication failed

The Bearer token is missing or invalid. Confirm the Authorization header holds a real Proto API key from your workspace.

Failed to connect

The endpoint is unreachable from your client. Confirm the URL is exactly https://mcp.evodesign.org/mcp and that you’re online.

A tool call returns 401 / 403

Your key lacks the scope (or credits) for that action. Ask the agent to run whoami to see your scopes and balance.

Self-hosting

Prefer to run the server yourself? Install the Python SDK’s MCP extra (pip install proto-client[mcp]) and launch it over stdio or HTTP. See the proto-client README for local-stdio configs and Docker self-hosting.

​Troubleshooting

​Self-hosting

Troubleshooting

Self-hosting