APX is a free, open-source desktop app that runs your own team of AI agents on your machine.

You connected a service. Your agent says the tool is unavailable. Replacing the token immediately may be the wrong move: the issue could be project scope, approval, sign-in, server startup or tool discovery.

Work through the path in order:

  1. Direction. Are you giving an agent another service's tools, or letting another application connect to your agent system? Those are different configurations.
  2. Scope and trust. Check the project and inspect the server definition before approval. A local server command can run code on your machine. Keep tokens out of repositories and chat; use supported secret storage.
  3. Sign-in and discovery. A configured server may still need sign-in or fail on startup. Check its status and tool list. Complete any browser sign-in yourself.
  4. A harmless read. Try a read-only operation on data you are authorized to access. Verify the account and the result before requesting a write.

In APX, global MCP servers can be inherited by projects unless disabled. A repository-declared project server requires approval for its exact definition and again if the definition changes. The Resources › MCP view has a test, and an idle server is not necessarily broken: the documented behavior is to start it on first use.

Tool discovery is another separate step. APX agents use mcp_search to find a tool and its arguments, then mcp_call to run it. A server exposing a tool does not remove the agent's own tool restrictions or the approvals that apply to the operation.

For a practical check, ask for something like: “In this project, find the issue titled ‘Update the setup guide’ in the repository I specify. Return its URL and current status. Do not edit or comment.” Compare the answer with the issue itself. That tests a particular account, project and read operation—not every tool the server offers.

A connection test proves that test, not that every operation is authorized. If a write times out, inspect the destination before retrying; otherwise an uncertain result can become a duplicate.

When asking for help, record which stage failed, the exact error and whether anything may already have changed. Leave tokens and other credentials out of the report. That gives you a narrower problem to solve than “MCP does not work.”

This checklist adapts the APX MCP troubleshooting article. See the current APX MCP guide for setup and permissions, and the MCP architecture overview for the client/server model.

For a short product overview—not an MCP diagnostic walkthrough—watch APX v2 — Your AI team, connected on the official APX channel. Explore APX.