Private connectivity & connectors

Many MCP servers and APIs live on private networks. MCP Gateway reaches them through governed connectivity — never by proxying arbitrary URLs.

Direct routes vs. connectors

• Direct private endpoints — approved private addresses the data plane may reach for a given upstream.
• Outbound connectors — managed egress paths to a private network or region, with their own health and lifecycle.

Both are constrained: the projection does not permit arbitrary localhost URLs, private‑endpoint bypass, arbitrary URL proxying, or secrets in schemas. This is the same SSRF boundary that the API‑to‑MCP adapter enforces.

Connector lifecycle and impact

Connectors have states (healthy, degraded, disconnected, disabled) and an explicit lifecycle transition path. Before you disable or revoke one, the gateway can show its impact — which servers, routes, and sessions depend on it — so a change is never a blind guess. See Manage connectors.

Tip

Impact analysis (GET /v1/connectors/{id}/impact) is the safe first step before any disruptive connector change — it returns the blast radius as metadata, with no secrets.