An **MCP server** is the bridge that connects a system — your CRM, your calendar, your catalog, a payments or documentation tool — with your AI agent, so it can **use it as a tool** while chatting: looking up data, creating records, searching for information. There are two routes to having one connected: - **Bring your own server** (the "MCP servers" block, what this manual and **Manual 26 · Settings and integrations** (section 8) also call "Custom"): you register the URL and the credential of an MCP server that already exists — yours or a third party's — following Manual 26's procedure. It keeps working exactly as before; this manual doesn't repeat it. - **The catalog of preconfigured servers** (section 3 onward, in this manual): a list of servers already verified by the Platform, grouped by trust level, where you only have to provide a key or authorize access — without needing to know the service's technical URL. > **Note — Tools always start off disabled** > > On both routes, when you connect a server for the first time, **none** of its tools become active > automatically — we discover them and show them to you all disabled, and you turn on, one by one, only > the ones your agent needs to use. It's the same "nothing on by default" principle that already governs > the rest of the platform.