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Quickstart

This guide walks you through setting up your first Virtual MCP (VMCP) with MintMCP in ~10 minutes. By the end, you'll have a fully working VMCP connected to a client and verified with a live tool call.

What This Quickstart Covers​

  • Adding an MCP Connector
  • Creating a Virtual MCP
  • Connecting it to your client
  • Running a test call to confirm everything works

For deeper background, see Gateway Architecture and MCP Connector.

Prerequisites​

Before starting, ensure you have:

  • A MintMCP account with admin access
  • An MCP client (e.g., Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, or your client of choice)

Step 1: Add an MCP Connector​

  1. Go to MCP Connectors, and click "Recommended MCPs"
  2. Choose a recommended MCP (e.g. Gmail MCP) and click "Install" MCP Connector success state
  3. Select “Per-user credentials” as the authentication method and click Connect.
  4. Provide your credentials and grant MCP access.
  5. Confirm success - you should see a green "Authenticated" state.

Step 2: Create a Virtual MCP​

  1. On the Connector page, navigate to Virtual MCPs and click Add to VMCP.

  2. Choose "Create New VMCP".

  3. Include the newly added Gmail MCP and click "Create Virtual MCP".

    VMCP setup

  4. Apply basic tool customization (e.g. disable all "Modifying tools").

    Customizing tools for VMCP

For more advanced governance and security, see Virtual MCP fundamentals.

Step 2a (Optional): Connect More MCPs to Your V-MCP​

You can attach additional MCP connectors to a Virtual MCP (V-MCP) to package multiple capabilities together for your team or use case.

  1. Go to MCP Connectors and add another MCP (e.g., Google Calendar).
  2. Select “Per-user credentials” as the authentication method and click Connect.
  3. Provide your credentials and grant MCP access.
  4. Go to Google Calendar connector page, navigate to Virtual MCPs tab, and click “Add to VMCP”.
  5. Add the Google Calendar connector to your existing V-MCP. Customizing tools for VMCP

Once added, the VMCP will expose tools from both Gmail and Google calendar MCPs, allowing clients to access them through a single unified interface.

Step 3: Connect Your VMCP to a Client​

Note: The following steps show Claude as an example client. The process is similar for other clients, and we’ll publish more detailed instructions for them shortly.

Connecting to Claude (Web)​

  1. On the Gmail VMCP page, navigate to "MCP Client Setup", and copy the MCP URL.

    MCP Connector success state

  2. Go to Claude MCP connectors and click on "Add custom connector".

  3. Name the connector and paste in the MCP URL you copied from above. Click "Add".

    Claude MCP connector setup

  4. In Claude MCP connectors page, click "Connect" and log in via your MintMCP account.

Step 4: Verify the connection works​

Claude (Web)​

  1. Create a new chat in Claude and ask:
What emails have I received today?
  1. Grant Claude access to use the Gmail VMCP.
  2. Check to make sure Claude's chat responses matches your expectation.