What is an MCP connector? (And why it's also called a server)
An MCP connector is one tool you hand your agent: Gmail, Slack, Notion, one connector each. Most apps call the same thing an MCP server, so the two words usually point at one thing. Adding one grants a bundle of actions, often including write and delete.
What is an MCP connector?
A connector is one tool your agent can reach. Add the Gmail connector and the agent can read and send mail. Add the Slack connector and it can post to channels. Nothing else moves: the agent still cannot touch anything you have not connected.
The naming is where people get stuck. "Connector" and "MCP server" usually mean the same thing under two labels. OpenAI keeps "connector" for the 8 it maintains itself (Dropbox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Outlook Calendar, Outlook Email, SharePoint) and calls everything else a remote MCP server. Anthropic files both under "custom connectors (remote MCP)", and caps free accounts at one custom connector.
What adding one actually grants
A connector is a bundle of actions, not a single action. Merge's Linear connector ships 20+ actions, including create, update and delete. Approving the sign-in screen hands your agent that whole bundle, not the two read actions you had in mind.
Check three things before you add one:
- Which actions in the bundle write or delete, rather than read.
- Who inherits the access. On Claude Team, read and write permission is set per connector for the whole team, not per person.
- Who maintains it. Connectors change under you. A Gmail connector update dropped the field that ties a draft to its email thread, and one user's morning drafts started arriving as fresh messages instead of replies.
Coming from Zapier or n8n
A Zap wires one trigger to one action you picked. A connector hands the agent the full menu and lets it choose per run. Add read-only connectors first, and turn on write access after you have watched a few runs go through.
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026