Connect DATEV Sandbox to Gemini CLI via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → DATEV Online APIs (Sandbox), paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key — done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

DATEV Online APIs (Sandbox) + Gemini

Sandbox environment for the DATEV Online APIs — read accounting Mandanten (clients), document types and DUO version metadata against DATEV's test data. Use this while you build and test; every new DATEV app must run in sandbox until DATEV grants production approval. Same OAuth2 Authorization Code + PKCE flow as production, pointed at DATEV's sandbox endpoints.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

DATEV_CLIENT_ID, DATEV_CLIENT_SECRET

Step 1 — Get credentials

Setting up takes about 10 minutes. You need an app on the DATEV-Entwicklerportal and a DATEV-Konto to sign in with.

1. On the DATEV-Entwicklerportal (https://developer.datev.de), create a Confidential app with OpenID Connect Authorization Code Flow. Set the redirect URI to <your AnythingMCP URL>/api/mcp-oauth/callback (on AnythingMCP Cloud: https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/api/mcp-oauth/callback).
2. Subscribe the app to the sandbox API products accounting:clients 2.0 and accounting:documents 2.0.
3. Copy the client ID into DATEV_CLIENT_ID and the client secret into DATEV_CLIENT_SECRET. Copy the secret in full: the portal shows it only once.
4. Install the connector. It is already set up for DATEV's sandbox endpoints and authenticates at the token endpoint with HTTP Basic (client_secret_basic), which DATEV requires.
5. On the connector page, click Authorize with Provider and log in with your DATEV-Konto. This is a one-time sign-in: the refresh token is then stored encrypted.
6. Run datev_list_clients: it lists the Mandanten your DATEV-Konto user is provisioned for, with UUID, consultant number, client number and name.

Sandbox, not production: every DATEV app runs in the sandbox until DATEV completes its production-approval review, so this is where you build and test. The sandbox works against DATEV's test data. Once DATEV approves your app for production, use the separate DATEV Online APIs connector: it takes the same credentials and points at the production endpoints.

Scopes: the connector asks for datev:accounting:clients accounting:clients:read accounting:documents. Do not add openid: it is the issuer name, not a scope.

Two kinds of client id: every per-client tool takes a clientId, the Mandant UUID that datev_list_clients returns. It is not the same as DATEV_CLIENT_ID, which identifies your OAuth app and is sent in the X-DATEV-Client-Id header on every call, together with the Bearer token.

What it reads: a Mandant's master data (consultant and client number, name, address); the Mandanten with DATEV Unternehmen online (DUO) document access, which can be fewer than all of them because only clients with an active DUO subscription appear; a Mandant's document types (Belegtypen); and the DUO version with the file extensions DUO accepts for upload. All six tools only read.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Gemini

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Gemini CLI reads MCP servers from ~/.gemini/settings.json (on Windows %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\settings.json). Add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "httpUrl": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Create an MCP API key in AnythingMCP under MCP Servers → your server → API keys, and paste it in place of YOUR_MCP_API_KEY.
2. Save the file and restart gemini.
3. Run /mcp inside Gemini CLI (or gemini mcp list in your shell) — anythingmcp should show as connected.
4. Start prompting — Gemini CLI can now call the DATEV Online APIs (Sandbox) tools.

Available tools

FAQ

Where does Gemini CLI look for MCP servers? In ~/.gemini/settings.json for your user, or in .gemini/settings.json inside a project. gemini mcp list shows each server and whether it connects.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT