Using Tavily through the MCP Gateway
The TrueFoundry MCP Gateway centralizes access to Tavily - agents connect through one endpoint instead of maintaining separate server configurations per client. As a TrueFoundry Managed MCP, Tavily’s URL, outbound auth, scopes, and credentials are owned and kept current by the platform. When you use Tavily MCP server through the Gateway, TrueFoundry provides:- Authentication — Clients authenticate inbound to the Gateway with a Personal Access Token, Virtual Account, or IDE OAuth flow. For outbound access, the Gateway runs the OAuth2 Authorization Code flow so each user authorizes their own Tavily account; tokens are stored, refreshed and injected per user on tool calls.
- Access control — Collaborators and role-based policies define who can use the server and which tools they can invoke. Enable or disable individual Tavily tools from the server detail page.
- Observability — Tool calls are traced with caller identity, tool name, inputs, and latency. Monitor server- and tool-level usage in MCP Metrics and export traces to your observability stack via OpenTelemetry.
- Guardrails — Apply pre-tool and post-tool guardrails on MCP tool calls. Pre-tool checks run before execution and can block the call; post-tool checks run on the response before it returns to the agent.
Adding Tavily MCP server to TrueFoundry
1
Open the MCP Server catalog
Navigate to MCP Servers in the TrueFoundry sidebar and click Add new MCP Server. On the next screen, select Connect TrueFoundry Managed MCPs - this opens the catalog of pre-vetted, fully configured MCP servers managed by TrueFoundry.
2
Add Tavily
Find tavily in the catalogue and click + Add. TrueFoundry provisions the server with no additional configuration and opens the Tavily MCP server detail page.
3
Authenticate
To authenticate, click Connect Now. A popup appears, review the details and click Approve to complete the authorization flow.
4
Verify tools
After approving, the Tools tab lists Tavily’s available tools (search, extract, crawl, map, research, and more). Click Try on any tool to test it and inspect the JSON output before using it in an agent.
Connecting to an MCP Client
Open the How To Use tab on the Tavily server detail page for your tenant-specific Gateway URL and ready-to-paste client snippets - don’t build the endpoint manually. The tab includes snippets for Claude Code, VS Code, Claude Web, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, and the Python and TypeScript MCP SDKs. Use Show API Key if your client requires a Gateway token in a header.
Using the Tool Playground
Before deploying an agent, you can test any Tavily MCP server tool directly in TrueFoundry:1
Open a tool
On the Tavily MCP server detail page, click Try next to any tool - for example
tavily_search.2
Fill in the inputs
For
tavily_search, the key parameters are:3
Execute and inspect
Click Execute Tool and inspect the JSON output in the right panel. The output contains a
results array where each item includes a url, title, content snippet, and a relevance score. The tavily_research tool returns a synthesized answer field in addition to the raw results.
Tool Metrics
The Tool Metrics tab on the Tavily server detail page tracks how agents use each tool:- Invocation count - which tools are called most often
- Latency - how long each tool takes to respond
- Error rates - which tools are failing in production
Disabling Individual Tools
On the Tools tab, toggle off any Tavily tools your agents don’t need:- Disabled tools are hidden from MCP clients and cannot be invoked.
- Enabled tools remain available to agents as usual.