How to add an MCP server to Claude: one URL, no install

Most guides to adding an MCP server to Claude start with Node, a JSON file and a restart. That is the local route: the server runs on your laptop as a program. A remote server is only an address. You paste it once and every conversation can use it, on the desktop app, the web and your phone.

This guide uses Datailo’s address, https://mcp.datailo.com/mcp. Behind that one address sit three professional data services: EU public tenders (Victano), EU regulation text (Rekvira) and Lithuanian law and court rulings (Avokata). The numbers below come from a session we recorded against the live server on 24 September 2026.

Where do you add it in Claude?

Anthropic’s help page for custom connectors gives the path for Free, Pro and Max accounts. Open Customize → Connectors → ”+” → Add custom connector, paste the URL and click Add. On Team and Enterprise plans an owner adds it once under Organization settings → Connectors.

The same page explains what makes a remote server different from one in claude_desktop_config.json:

“remote connectors are configured and brokered through your Claude account. The connection to your MCP server originates from Anthropic’s servers, not from your machine’s network interface.”

Source: Get started with custom connectors using remote MCP, Anthropic Help Center.

Per-client instructions, with the text to copy, are on the Connect page.

What happens after you paste the address?

We ran the steps an assistant takes on first use and timed each one from our test machine:

1. The client asks the server what it can do. Datailo answered with 15 tools in 64 ms. That list stays at 15 however many services you switch on, which keeps the assistant’s context small.
2. Sign-in happens inside the chat. datailo_connect takes your email; you confirm with the code or link it sends. Our test address got its code back directly: 66 ms to start, 31 ms to finish. There is no password to set and no card to enter.
3. datailo_catalog listed three services in 94 ms: Avokata with 27 tools, Victano with 22 and Rekvira with 17, 66 tools in all.
4. datailo_enable switched on and linked each one to the same account: Rekvira in 33 ms (it needs no account), Victano in 307 ms and Avokata in 237 ms.
5. Through datailo_invoke, Rekvira returned the five EU regulations it holds (the AI Act, DORA, GDPR, NIS2 and the Cyber Resilience Act) in 239 ms.

A search of open Lithuanian tenders for “artificial intelligence” took longer, 1,785 ms, and returned 1,546 matching notices. The first was a heritage-monitoring contract “paremta dirbtiniu intelektu” (based on artificial intelligence) with a deadline of 28 September 2026. That tender will have closed by the time you read this. We show it for the route the answer took.

Do you need to install anything?

No. A remote server runs elsewhere and speaks MCP over HTTPS, so there is no package, no runtime and no configuration file on your computer. What you do need:

• a Claude plan that allows custom connectors (the help page lists Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise);
• the server’s URL, and nothing else if the server signs you in during the chat, as Datailo does;
• trust in the server, because it will see the questions your assistant sends it. Read what it stores before you connect it. Datailo’s privacy notice says what it keeps.

Why add one address instead of three?

Each service can be connected on its own: Victano, Rekvira and Avokata all have their own MCP addresses. Connecting them separately means three sign-ins and three tool lists in every conversation. One hub address means one sign-in, a fixed list of 15 tools, and services you switch on or off from inside the chat. The hub adds a step: the assistant reads a tool’s inputs with datailo_tool_schema before its first call to it. For most people who need more than one of these services, that trade is worth it.

Limits

• The Claude-app steps follow Anthropic’s help page as of September 2026; menu names change. We have not recorded the ChatGPT route.
• Timings were measured from one machine in the EU and include network time. Yours will differ.
• Datailo is in beta. Nothing is charged, and payments are not switched on.

Related

• Connect Datailo: the address and the steps for each client
• The Datailo catalogue: each service’s datasets and their dates
• Claude Code’s MCP guide, Anthropic’s documentation