Action Gateway Quickstartpublic
Last verified 28 Sep 2026
Action Gateway gives applications and AI agents governed access to tens of thousands of tools through a managed MCP endpoint or SDK. See What You Can Build for example use cases of Action Gateway with Harness Runtime.
An Action Gateway session gives you an MCP endpoint (URL) with the tools and permissions you choose. Add that URL to your coding agent or other MCP client to let it find and run those tools.
This quickstart connects Claude Code or Codex in three steps. You need a DigitalOcean account and either client installed. For clients such as OpenClaw, Hermes, or ChatGPT, see Connect an External MCP Client.
1. Create a Session
- Open Action Gateway Sessions in the Control Panel and click Create session.
- Enter a Session Name, such as
coding-agent, and keep the default settings. The default Ask permission policy requires your approval before tools run. - Create the session and copy its MCP URL. This is the server URL you add to your coding agent in the next step.
2. Connect Your Coding Agent
Choose your agent below. Run the commands in a terminal from your project directory, replacing <action-gateway-session-mcp-url> with the URL you copied. When prompted, sign in with the DigitalOcean account you used to create the session.
Add Action Gateway and start browser sign-in:
codex mcp add action-gateway --url "<action-gateway-session-mcp-url>"
codex mcp login action-gatewayAfter signing in, run codex to start a new coding-agent session.
Add Action Gateway:
claude mcp add --transport http action-gateway "<action-gateway-session-mcp-url>"Run claude in the same project directory. In Claude Code, run /mcp, select action-gateway, and follow the browser sign-in prompts.
3. Try a Tool
Send this prompt to your coding agent:
Use Action Gateway to list available DigitalOcean Droplet sizes. Do not create, update, or delete any resources.Review and approve the read-only call when prompted. Your agent finds the tool, runs it, and returns a list of Droplet sizes.
This example does not require a prepaid balance, but tool invocation charges apply.
Reuse the same session URL for future tasks that need the same tools and permissions. To choose a different set of tools or permissions, create another session and update your client’s URL. To use tools from other services, authorize their providers. For SDK setup, see Connect Action Gateway.
Before deploying an agent, configure Action Gateway for production agents with restricted tools and permissions.
For complete session configurations and tasks to try, see Action Gateway Examples. Explore What You Can Build with Action Gateway for standalone use cases.