ADMIN PRIVILEGES REQUIRED

This documentation is for Stack Internal Enterprise. Free, Basic, and Business users can access their documentation here. Find your plan.

Overview

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard offers an efficient, flexible way for AI agents and assistants to access data sources of various types. With an MCP server on your Stack Internal Enterprise site, you can give an AI agent access to trusted content in real time. This results in accurate, context-aware AI support with responses grounded in enterprise knowledge.

The Stack Overflow Internal MCP server makes your enterprise knowledge available to any MCP-compatible AI agent. It provides a structured interface for secure read and write access to your team’s content. By configuring your site's MCP server, you enable AI coding agents, AI assistants, and custom agents to:

Read trusted, high-quality enterprise knowledge to improve their outputs.
Draft, create, and edit questions, answers, and articles from within their own interface, seamlessly storing enterprise knowledge back to your Stack Overflow Internal site.

The MCP server is built with enterprise-grade governance, attribution, and usage logging, ensuring secure and scalable adoption across your organization.

NOTE: We're providing this feature as a free trial for a limited time. Discuss with your Customer Success Manager how to continue using the MCP server as part of your Stack Overflow Internal contract.

MCP server page

Admins and end users alike can access the MCP server landing page at https://[your_site].stackenterprise.co/mcp. There you'll find helpful information, code samples, documentation links, and more.

Enable the MCP server

Your site's MCP server is enabled by default. If you disabled your MCP server and wish to enable it again, log in to Stack Internal Enterprise as an admin and follow these steps:

Go to https://[your_site].stackenterprise.co/enterprise/mcp.
Set Enable MCP Server to On.

When you enable the MCP server, your site automatically registers a new "Stack Overflow MCP Server" API service application. You can see this new service application by clicking Admin settings, then API.

Access the MCP server

After you've enabled the MCP server, developers can add the MCP server to any MCP-compatible tool including:

AI Assistants (ChatGPT, Claude Code, Gemini)
AI Coding Assistants (Cursor, GitHub Copilot via VS Code, Windsurf, JetBrains AI Assistant, Junie, Devin)
Custom internal agents or chatbots

NOTE: All MCP clients or agents must support the 3/26/2025 MCP spec.

If you're building a custom agent, reach out to support for implementation details.

Authentication

The Stack Internal Enterprise MCP server uses OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for secure authentication.

End users authenticate with their Stack Overflow Internal account. The MCP client (for example: Copilot, Cursor, JetBrains Assistant) will open a browser window for login and token exchange.
After Stack Internal Enterprise creates a new API service application for the MCP server, admins manage client registration and API access at https://[your_site].stackenterprise.co/enterprise/api.
Tokens are short-lived and scoped to the authenticated user. As the MCP server doesn't support long-lived static tokens, agents must refresh tokens as needed.
The MCP server enforces security at both the user and tenant level, and logs all requests for governance and attribution.

If you're having problems with your MCP server configuration, reach out to support.

Common Issues

Client ID is not registered This means that the client has not registered itself with the MCP Server. The MCP Server is rejecting the authentication request because it cannot find a registered client with that client Id.

MCP Clients (i.e. Cursor, VS Code, etc) do register themselves as a client first and only once when they are authenticating an MCP Server the first time. They reuse the registration for subsequent authentication attempts.

In Visual Studio Code, users can remove a registration which will effectively force the client to re-register itself. To do this, go to F1 > Authentication and select “Remove Dynamic Authentication Providers”. Then choose the registration you want to remove.