Connect to Honeycomb MCP

Connect Honeycomb to any AI agent that supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) so it can query your telemetry, investigate issues, and answer questions using your live Honeycomb data. This guide covers the fastest way to connect, manual configuration for specific clients, and authentication with an API key.

If you need to get data into Honeycomb using sample data, real instrumentation, or connecting to an existing pipeline, start with Send data with AI instead.

Before you begin

Make sure that:

Your Honeycomb team has enabled Honeycomb Intelligence.
Your AI agent supports remote MCP servers or plugins.

Put your agent to work

Run the prompt associated with your region in your AI agent:

Connect to the Honeycomb MCP server (US)

Once your agent authenticates, it can query your telemetry, investigate issues, and answer questions using your live Honeycomb data. For the list of tools that Honeycomb MCP exposes to your agent, visit the MCP Tools Reference.

Connect manually

For step-by-step configuration instructions, select your client:

Connect Amazon Q Developer to Honeycomb MCP using the qchat CLI:

Run the command associated with your region in your terminal:

qchat mcp add --name honeycomb --command npx --args mcp-remote,https://mcp.honeycomb.io/mcp

qchat mcp add --name honeycomb --command npx --args mcp-remote,https://mcp.eu1.honeycomb.io/mcp

Run any MCP tool. Authenticate and grant the requested permissions to finish connecting.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect Augment (Auggie CLI) to Honeycomb MCP by installing the Honeycomb plugin:

Add the Honeycomb agent skills as a plugin source

Run this in your terminal:

auggie plugin marketplace add honeycombio/agent-skill

To check out the Honeycomb agent skills, visit the agent skills repo.

Install the Honeycomb plugin

Run this in your terminal:

auggie plugin install honeycomb

Set up the Honeycomb MCP

Run this prompt in Auggie and authenticate with Honeycomb when asked:

Set up Honeycomb

Your agent connects to Honeycomb MCP: sets your region, authenticates, and verifies access.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through installing Honeycomb’s agent skills and running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect Claude Code to Honeycomb MCP by installing the Honeycomb plugin:

Install Honeycomb as a Claude Code plugin

Run this in your terminal:

claude plugin marketplace add honeycombio/agent-skill
claude plugin install honeycomb

Set up the Honeycomb MCP

Run this prompt in Claude Code and authenticate with Honeycomb when asked:

Set up Honeycomb

Your agent connects to Honeycomb MCP: sets your region, authenticates, and verifies access.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Set up Claude Code manually

Add the Honeycomb MCP

Run the command associated with your region in your terminal:

claude mcp add honeycomb --transport http https://mcp.honeycomb.io/mcp

claude mcp add honeycomb --transport http https://mcp.eu1.honeycomb.io/mcp

Add the Honeycomb skills

Download the skills folder from the Honeycomb agent-skill repo and copy it into your skills directory:

  git clone https://github.com/honeycombio/agent-skill.git /tmp/agent-skill-temp
  cp -r /tmp/agent-skill-temp/honeycomb/skills/* ~/.claude/skills/
  rm -rf /tmp/agent-skill-temp

For details on skill locations and scope, see Claude Code’s Agent Skills documentation.

Set up the MCP

Run this prompt in Claude Code and authenticate with Honeycomb when asked:

Set up Honeycomb

Your agent connects to Honeycomb MCP: sets your region, authenticates, and verifies access.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect Claude Desktop to Honeycomb MCP using the Honeycomb connector:

Select Customize > Connectors.
Select Add > Browse Connectors.
Search for Honeycomb to go to the Honeycomb connector page.
Select the + on the Honeycomb connector to add it.
When prompted, sign in to Honeycomb and authorize the application. If no browser window opens to prompt authentication over OAuth, fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through installing Honeycomb’s agent skills and running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect OpenAI Codex to Honeycomb MCP by installing Honeycomb as a plugin:

Install the Honeycomb plugin

Run this in your terminal:

codex plugin marketplace add honeycombio/agent-skill
codex plugin add honeycomb@honeycomb-plugins

Load the plugin

Restart Codex to load the plugin. This also configures the Honeycomb MCP server for you.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect GitHub Copilot to Honeycomb MCP by installing the Honeycomb plugin:

Install Honeycomb as a Copilot plugin

Run this in your terminal:

copilot plugin install honeycombio/agent-skill:honeycomb

Set up the Honeycomb MCP

Run this prompt in Copilot and authenticate with Honeycomb when asked:

Set up Honeycomb

Your agent connects to Honeycomb MCP: sets your region, authenticates, and verifies access.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Connect Cursor to Honeycomb MCP using this one-click install link: Add Honeycomb to Cursor

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through installing Honeycomb’s agent skills and running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Set up Cursor manually

Add the Honeycomb MCP

Open Cursor and navigate to Preferences > Cursor Settings > Customize.
Select the MCP view.
Select New MCP Server.

Update mcp.json with the configuration for your region:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "honeycomb": {
      "url": "https://mcp.honeycomb.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "honeycomb": {
      "url": "https://mcp.eu1.honeycomb.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Save the configuration file and restart Cursor.

Authenticate with the Honeycomb MCP

Run any MCP tool. Honeycomb opens a browser window to authenticate. Grant the requested permissions to finish connecting.

Want your agent to send data too? Send data with AI walks through installing Honeycomb’s agent skills and running guided onboarding to help you instrument your application.

Authenticate with an API key

If you are building autonomous or unattended agents and cannot use OAuth, then you can authenticate with an API key. Only team owners can generate an API key.

Prefer OAuth in most use cases. Use an API key only when your agent cannot support interactive login.

Generate an API key in Honeycomb

Log in to your Honeycomb account.
Navigate to Account > Team Settings > API Keys.
Select Create Management API Key.
Name your key (for example, “MCP Integration”).
Choose the Model Context Protocol and Environments scopes, then grant permissions:
- Read: Required for all Honeycomb MCP operations. Be sure to grant read for both MCP and Environments.
- Write: Required for tools that create or update Honeycomb resources, including Boards, Triggers, SLOs, notification/alert recipients, and Canvas investigations. To explore the complete list of write tools, visit the MCP Tools Reference.
Copy the Key ID and Key Secret, and store them somewhere safe. You will need them later, and you won’t be able to see them again.

Add your API key to your agent

The exact configuration process varies by agent, but here is an example configuration mcp.json snippet used by agents like Claude Code or Cursor:

Be sure to use the appropriate endpoint for your region, and replace KEY_ID and SECRET_KEY with your actual key values.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "honeycomb": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.honeycomb.io/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer $HONEYCOMB_API_KEY"
      ],
      "env": {
        "HONEYCOMB_API_KEY": "<KEY_ID>:<SECRET_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "honeycomb": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.eu1.honeycomb.io/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer $HONEYCOMB_API_KEY"
      ],
      "env": {
        "HONEYCOMB_API_KEY": "<KEY_ID>:<SECRET_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Pay attention to formatting, including spacing and colon (:) characters.If your tool cannot parse the Authorization header correctly, try putting the Bearer prefix directly in the environment variable: "HONEYCOMB_API_KEY": "Bearer KEY_ID:SECRET_KEY".

As a security best practice, make sure that keys being used for MCP integrations do not carry any other scopes, and that you do not commit them to source control.

Confirm the connection

Once connected, test by asking your agent to list available tools or fetch available teams and environments. You should get results if your key and permissions are set up correctly.

Limit the tools your agent loads

A smaller tool list can help your agent choose the right tool and use less of its context. By default, your agent loads every Honeycomb MCP tool and prompt. To load only part of them, configure your AI tool to send the X-MCP-Toolset header with each request to Honeycomb MCP.

Value	What your agent loads
`all`	Every tool and prompt available to you. This is the default.
`query`	Tools for querying and managing your telemetry, including Boards, Triggers, and SLOs. Includes prompts.
`canvas`	Only the tools for working with Canvas. Doesn’t include prompts or query tools.

The header limits which tools your agent loads but doesn’t grant access. Your scopes and plan still control which tools are available. If the header has an unrecognized or empty value, Honeycomb MCP rejects each request that includes it, so your agent can’t use Honeycomb MCP until you correct or remove the header.

Next steps

Continue your MCP journey:

Example Use Cases: Explore real-world use cases and tips for working with Honeycomb via MCP.
Tools Reference: Learn about the tools Honeycomb MCP exposes to AI agents.

MCP Prompts Reference: Run pre-written workflows, like guided onboarding, from your AI agent.

Troubleshooting: Fix common MCP configuration and connection issues.

Investigate with AI

Observe

Query

Collaborate

Diagnose

Before you begin

Put your agent to work

Connect manually

Authenticate with an API key

Generate an API key in Honeycomb

Add your API key to your agent

Confirm the connection

Limit the tools your agent loads

Next steps

​Before you begin

​Put your agent to work

​Connect manually

​Authenticate with an API key

Generate an API key in Honeycomb

Add your API key to your agent

Confirm the connection

​Limit the tools your agent loads

​Next steps

Before you begin

Put your agent to work

Connect manually

Authenticate with an API key

Limit the tools your agent loads

Next steps