Manually configure the MCP server

If your AI assistant uses a command-line interface (CLI) or integrates with an integrated development environment (IDE), it's likely that you will have to configure Smartsheet MCP Server access using a configuration file or command-line parameters. Exact paths and formats (for example, JSON, TOML, and others) vary by AI assistant. And some assistants support using environment values.

For confidential information, such as Smartsheet API tokens, consider using environment variables.

Benefits:

• No secrets in configuration files that might get shared or committed
• One place to update when rotating tokens
• Same configuration file works for everyone on a team (each person sets their own environment variable)
• Same environment variable referenced for all MCP server configs for all assistants

Set an environment variable (the name is arbitrary).

export SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN="value"

If you configure your connection via a terminal command or a configuration file, use your environment variable (${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN}) in place of your API token.

Here's an MCP server configuration from a settings.json file for Gemini CLI:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smartsheet-mcp": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.smartsheet.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

In the above example, you would replace:

• smartsheet-mcp with an arbitrary name you want to use for your connection.
• The URL with your region's URL, if you're using a regional server outside the US.
• ${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN} with the environment variable for your Smartsheet API token.

If you want to connect to Smartsheet production servers in multiple regions simultaneously, add their configurations to your mcpServers object.

For example,

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smartsheet-us": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.smartsheet.com",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN}"
      }
    },
    "smartsheet-eu": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.smartsheet.eu",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN_EU}"
      }
    },
    "smartsheet-au": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.smartsheet.au",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${SMARTSHEET_API_TOKEN_AU}"
      }
    }
  }
}

The configuration above registers connections to production servers for the United States, European Union, and Australia regions.

After registering the Smartsheet MCP Server and connecting to it, test your server connection.

Test prompt:

List the Smartsheet MCP server tools.

The response includes Smartsheet tools such as get_sheet_summary and more.

Once you're connected to the MCP server, you can:

• Check out the example prompts described in Smartsheet MCP prompt cookbook.

• Learn more about the MCP server's capabilities at Smartsheet MCP server tools.