Connect MCP servers - Corbits Dev

Corbits Code reaches Model Context Protocol servers two ways: a remote HTTP endpoint authorized over OAuth, or a local process launched over stdio. Linear ships a hosted OAuth server, so it is the fastest add. Slack has no hosted MCP endpoint, so it runs as a local process you configure with your own bot token. Working through both here covers the two shapes you will hit for any other server. You need a repository you are running Corbits Code in and, before the Slack step, a Slack app with a bot token.

Alt+A, Alt+D, and Alt+R only work when your terminal sends Option or Alt as a modifier. A terminal that swallows the chord shows no error; the keypress just does nothing, or types a character such as å. On macOS in VS Code’s integrated terminal, set "terminal.integrated.macOptionIsMeta": true and reopen the terminal first. (MCP key handling)

Add Linear from the TUI

Run /mcp, press Alt+A, and enter a name and URL:

name: linear
url:  https://mcp.linear.app/mcp

A server name takes letters, numbers, and single underscores or hyphens; __ is reserved for tool namespacing. Alt+A only takes a name and a URL, so it only reaches remote HTTP servers, and it always writes to your global ~/.corbits/settings.json, never the current repo’s local file. (name and URL validation; Alt+A row)

Authorize Linear

After the first connection attempt, /mcp shows linear with the status needs auth. Select that row and press Enter. Corbits Code opens Linear’s consent page in your browser and copies its URL to the clipboard automatically. Approve in the browser; a loopback server on your machine catches the redirect and exchanges the code for tokens with no paste-back. The row changes to connected when authorization completes. (authorization action; authorization flow test; HTTP OAuth connection)The token is written under ~/.corbits/mcp-auth/, with its file identity derived from the server name and normalized URL, never into settings.json. (token file identity)

Get a Slack bot token

Create a Slack app at api.slack.com/apps, install it to your workspace, and grant it the bot scopes it needs to read and post messages, for example channels:history, channels:read, and chat:write. Copy the bot token (xoxb-...) and the team ID from OAuth & Permissions.

Add Slack alongside Linear

Alt+A cannot add a stdio server, since it only ever writes a name and a URL. Open ~/.corbits/settings.json, the same file Alt+A wrote Linear into, and replace its mcpServers value with this combined map:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "linear": { "url": "https://mcp.linear.app/mcp" },
    "slack": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-slack"],
      "env": {
        "SLACK_BOT_TOKEN": "xoxb-...",
        "SLACK_TEAM_ID": "T0..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Confirm the package name and required scopes against whichever Slack MCP server you actually install; the one above is the long-standing community reference implementation, not one Corbits maintains or vets. Corbits Code passes an entry’s env map to that server’s process only, so keep the token inside the slack entry. That holds in a repo’s local .corbits/settings.json too, where a token-shaped key at the top level is ignored with a diagnostic instead. Settings are read at startup, so exit and start Corbits Code again after saving the file. (MCP entry schema; stdio process environment; local credential-key guard; startup resolution)

You will know it worked when /mcp lists both linear and slack as connected rows. Select a row and press Alt+D to disable that server without deleting its configuration. Press Alt+R to open a confirmation, then confirm to remove the configuration. When the removed entry is an HTTP server, Corbits Code also attempts to delete its saved OAuth state. (MCP management actions; MCP shortcut handling; disable and removal persistence)

Keep every server in one file. A repo’s local .corbits/settings.json does not merge its mcpServers list with the global one, it replaces it outright while that file is in effect, and it blocks Alt+A from reaching global settings at all until the local list is removed and Corbits Code restarts. Adding Slack locally in one repository while Linear lives only in the global file means Linear silently stops connecting in that repository. If you want a project-scoped list instead of the global one, move every server you want there into that repo’s .corbits/settings.json together, including the ones Alt+A already wrote to global. A server added this way also needs a one-time trust approval in the TUI on first connect, and a headless run with no trust callback will not connect it at all, so local MCP fails closed rather than launching an untrusted process. An untrusted server shows in /mcp as failed with “Not trusted for this project”. (local list replaces global; local list precedence; local add restriction; trust-on-first-use gate; untrusted status)

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