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Cursor, Claude Desktop & Other MCP Clients

After this page you know exactly what Preloop can and cannot govern for each MCP-capable client the CLI discovers, and how to wire the ones that need manual steps.

Any client that speaks MCP over streamable HTTP can point at Preloop's endpoint with an API key:

URL:    https://YOUR_PRELOOP_URL/mcp/v1
Header: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

That gives you the MCP firewall — access rules, approvals, audit — for every tool call the client makes through Preloop. What differs per client is model traffic: only some clients let Preloop rewrite their model configuration so spend flows through the gateway.

Support matrix

Client Tool governance (MCP) Model routing through the gateway
Claude Code Automatic Automatic
Codex CLI Automatic Automatic
Gemini CLI Automatic Automatic
OpenCode Automatic Automatic
Hermes Automatic Automatic
OpenClaw Automatic Automatic (OpenAI-compatible gateway)
Cursor Automatic Manual (see below)
Claude Desktop Automatic Not available
Windsurf Automatic Not available
VS Code / Copilot Automatic Not available
Antigravity Automatic Not available — locked to Google-hosted models, no custom base URL
Devin Automatic Not available — inference runs in Cognition's cloud

"Automatic" means preloop agents discover / preloop agents onboard <agent> handles it. Clients without model routing keep using their own provider credentials: tool calls are governed and audited, but their model spend does not appear in Cost analytics and model budgets do not apply to them.

Cursor

Onboarding configures the MCP firewall automatically. Cursor only accepts a custom model base URL through its in-app Settings → Models (global, chat-only, no config-file hook), so Preloop does not rewrite model traffic. To route Cursor's model spend through Preloop anyway, set the OpenAI base-URL override in Cursor's settings to your Preloop gateway URL (https://YOUR_PRELOOP_URL/openai/v1) with a managed credential as the key.

Cursor is also one of the clients that supports the native tool-approval hook: preloop agents onboard cursor --approvals routes tool calls that would have prompted you locally to Preloop approvals instead.

Claude Desktop

Discovered and onboarded for MCP governance. Claude Desktop has no mechanism for custom model endpoints, so model routing is not available.

Everything else

If your client is MCP-capable but not in the table, add the endpoint manually (URL + bearer header as above) and it gets the same tool governance. Check preloop agents discover --json first — the discovery list grows release by release.