Connect NocoDB to Cursor via MCP: Tables and Records

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

NocoDB + Cursor

Read NocoDB workspaces, bases, tables, and records from NocoDB Cloud or a self-hosted instance. 7 read-only tools using xc-token API key authentication against the v3 REST API.

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:

NOCODB_URL, NOCODB_API_TOKEN

Step 1 — Get credentials

Setting up takes about 2 minutes. You need your NocoDB address and an API token.

1. In NocoDB, open Team & Settings → API Tokens and create a token. Use a token with read-only access where possible. Copy it into NOCODB_API_TOKEN.
2. Set NOCODB_URL to the root NocoDB host, without a trailing slash: https://app.nocodb.com on NocoDB Cloud, or your own host, for example https://nocodb.example.com.
3. Install the connector and run nocodb_list_workspaces: it lists the workspaces your token can see.

Token scope: NocoDB API tokens apply to the whole NocoDB instance and are sent in the xc-token header. To limit what the AI can see, create the token from a user account that has only the permissions it needs.

Where NocoDB runs: AnythingMCP Cloud reaches only publicly reachable NocoDB instances. If your NocoDB host is private or resolves to private address space, self-host AnythingMCP on the same network and allow the host through SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS, otherwise the outbound guard blocks the request.

What it reads: through the NocoDB v3 API, your workspaces, bases and tables, a table's columns with names and types, records, one record by its numeric row ID, and record counts. IDs follow a chain: nocodb_list_workspaces gives workspace IDs (starting with w), nocodb_list_bases base IDs (starting with p) and nocodb_list_tables table IDs. Before filtering or sorting, the AI calls nocodb_get_table for the exact field names. Filters use NocoDB syntax, for example (Status,eq,Open)~and(Priority,eq,High), and sorting is JSON, for example [{"field":"CreatedAt","direction":"desc"}].

Community Edition: an unlicensed self-hosted NocoDB may have a single implicit workspace, so nocodb_list_workspaces can return one entry or an empty list. Then go straight to nocodb_list_bases with the known workspace ID, or to the tables if you already know the base ID.

Limits: pageSize is silently capped at 100 on NocoDB Cloud and 1000 on self-hosted instances; nocodb_count_records gives the total before paging through a large table. NocoDB allows about 5 requests per second per user, shared by all of that user's tokens. Over that it returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header.

The connector is read-only: it does not create, update or delete records, tables, bases or workspaces, and it does not use views (plan-gated), attachments, webhooks or the deprecated v1 and v2 APIs.

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 Cursor

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.

Cursor reads MCP servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Add this entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "url": "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 Cursor.
3. Open Cursor → Settings → MCP and check that anythingmcp is listed and connected.
4. Start chatting — the agent can now call the NocoDB tools.

Available tools

FAQ

Does Cursor support custom MCP servers on the free tier? Yes — MCP is available on Hobby, Pro and Business plans.

Next steps

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