How to Add ThreadSnoop as a Custom Connector on Claude.ai Web (MCP OAuth)

Claude Desktop's “Add custom connector” dialog is OAuth-only, which is a dead end for a plain API-key server — see the Desktop fix, which needs a local mcp-remote bridge to work around it. claude.ai on the web has the exact same OAuth-only dialog, and until recently that meant web had no working path at all for a header-authenticated server — mcp-remoteis a local process, and a browser can't launch one.

ThreadSnoop's MCP server now speaks real OAuth 2.1, which flips that from a dead end into the easy path: no bridge, no header field, no local install at all. Here's the actual walkthrough for adding it as a custom connector on claude.ai web.

Add the connector

Go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector on claude.ai. Fill in:

• Name: anything, e.g. “ThreadSnoop”
• Remote MCP server URL: https://api.threadsnoop.com/mcp

Leave Advanced settings → OAuth Client ID/Secret blank. Those fields exist for servers that only accept a pre-registered static client; ThreadSnoop's server supports Dynamic Client Registration, so Claude registers itself automatically the moment you click Add — nothing to paste in.

Sign in and grant access

Claude opens the ThreadSnoop sign-in page in your browser. Use whichever account you want the connector tied to — email/password, or Continue with Googleif you'd rather skip picking a password. Either way you land on a plain consent screen: which account is connecting, that it's read-only Reddit search access (the same scope a dashboard API key has), that Claude can never see or change your password, and that you can disconnect it from Settings at any time. Click Allow, and the connector shows as connected — no separate key to copy, no config file to edit.

Verify it's actually working

A green “connected” status confirms the OAuth handshake finished, not that a tool call actually works. Ask Claude:

Check my ThreadSnoop credits

That calls the check_credits tool, which is free — run it as many times as you want while debugging. A real balance and rate limit coming back means the whole chain worked: registration, sign-in, consent, and the token Claude is now using to call the server. New accounts start with 1,000 free Reddit searches, so a follow-up like “search Reddit for people complaining about slow customer onboarding” will actually return real results, not just a credits number.

What's actually happening behind the consent screen

For anyone building their own MCP server and wondering what “OAuth support” needs to mean in practice: claude.ai's connector flow expects a real OAuth 2.1 authorization server behind the MCP endpoint — RFC 8414 authorization-server metadata, RFC 9728 protected-resource metadata so Claude can discover where to send you, PKCE on the authorization-code exchange, and (per RFC 8707) a token scoped to the exact resource URL Claude connected to, not a blanket credential. Dynamic Client Registration is what lets Claude register itself on the spot instead of you hand-provisioning a client ID first.

None of that requires a separate token format under the hood — the access token Claude ends up holding is a normal ThreadSnoop API key, the same kind the dashboard issues, just minted through the OAuth flow instead of a “Create key” button. It shows up in your account's key list, spends from the same credit balance, and you can revoke it from Settings the moment you disconnect the connector.

Claude Code and Cursor connect directly with a plain x-api-key header instead — no OAuth needed there at all, since both let you paste a header into a config file. See giving Claude Code access to Reddit for that one-line setup, or the usage guide for what to actually do with the connection once it's live — pagination, cost-checking, and a real search workflow.

Frequently asked questions