Connecting an MCP Client

Becoming runs a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so any MCP-compatible AI tool — Claude Desktop, Cursor, ChatGPT-style clients — can work with your Becoming library during a conversation. It can search your highlights, browse your sources, read your notes, save new passages, and add books and links to your library. On The Academy, it can also generate Themes and complete Practices on your behalf.

Authentication uses OAuth 2.1: you click “Connect Becoming” inside the AI tool, sign in once, approve the requested permissions, and you’re done. There’s no token to copy or paste.

What MCP access includes

By default, an AI assistant can read from your library:

Search your highlights (full-text + semantic, hybrid by default)
List and filter your sources (books, articles, videos, podcasts)
Open a single source with its highlights
Open a single highlight with source metadata
Read your notes collection

With the Add highlights permission (highlights:write), it can also save new passages into your library, and with Add sources (sources:write) it can add books and links — YouTube videos import their transcript, other pages are saved as readable articles. Both work on any paid tier.

On The Academy, write access extends to Themes and Practices, letting an assistant help you act on what you’ve read:

Start a Theme generation and turn it into a Theme
Generate the daily Practices for a Theme
Mark Practices done or skip them, and log reflections
Finish a Theme

Write access is never automatic. You grant the matching write scopes on the consent screen, and even then the assistant must explicitly confirm each write before it happens — nothing changes in your library silently.

Before you start

An active Becoming account (any paid tier, or a library trial) and an open browser session.
An MCP-compatible client. Examples:
- Claude Desktop
- Cursor
- ChatGPT (custom connectors)

Connect a client

The exact UI varies by client, but the steps are the same:

In your AI tool, open Add MCP server (or the equivalent — sometimes called “Connect a tool” or “Add connector”).
Paste the Becoming MCP URL (your tool will discover the rest automatically):
```
https://mcp.usebecoming.com/mcp
```
The tool will pop open a browser window for sign-in.
Sign in to Becoming if you aren’t already.
Review the consent screen at app.usebecoming.com/oauth/consent — it lists the requesting app and the permissions it’s asking for.
Click Allow.
The browser will return you to the AI tool with the connection live.

That’s it. Try a query like “What did I highlight about resilience?” — the tool should reach into your library and answer with passages from your sources.

Permissions you can grant

When an app asks to connect, it requests a set of scopes. You see exactly which ones on the consent screen, and granting only the scopes you need is always the safer choice.

Library scopes (any paid tier):

Read highlights (highlights:read) — search highlights, open a single highlight
Add highlights (highlights:write) — save new passages into your library
Read sources (sources:read) — list and open sources
Add sources (sources:write) — add books and links to your library
Read notes (notes:read) — read notes attached to highlights

Academy scopes (The Academy):

Themes (themes:read, themes:write) — read your Themes; generate and finish them
Practices (practices:read, practices:write) — read your Practices; mark them done or skip them
Reflections (reflections:read, reflections:write) — read your saved reflections; log new reflections

Every write scope pairs with its read scope, and every write still needs the assistant to confirm the specific action. For the full list of tools behind each scope, see the MCP Tools Reference.

Manage connected apps

All your active MCP connections live in Settings → Connected apps (or directly at app.usebecoming.com/settings?tab=connectedApps).

For each connection you can see:

The connecting app’s name (e.g. “Claude Desktop”)
The scopes you granted
When you connected it
When it was last used
A Revoke button

Revoke any connection you no longer recognize or no longer use. After revoking, that app stops working with Becoming within a few minutes (existing in-flight calls expire quickly; new calls are rejected immediately).

What happens during the handshake

This section is optional reading — useful if you’re curious or troubleshooting.

When you click “Connect Becoming” in your AI tool:

The tool discovers Becoming’s OAuth endpoints automatically (RFC 8414/9728 metadata).
It registers itself dynamically (RFC 7591) — no admin step required.
It opens a browser window pointed at Becoming’s authorization endpoint, with a PKCE code challenge.
Becoming forwards you to the consent screen at app.usebecoming.com/oauth/consent, where you sign in and approve the requested scopes.
Once approved, Becoming issues an opaque OAuth bearer token to the AI tool. Access tokens last about an hour; refresh tokens last about 30 days and renew automatically.
On every subsequent tool call, Becoming validates the bearer and applies your granted scopes. Write calls must additionally arrive with an explicit confirmation.

You can revoke the OAuth grant any time from Settings → Connected apps. The bearer token becomes useless within a few minutes.

Troubleshooting

My AI tool says “couldn’t reach the MCP server”

Confirm the URL is exactly https://mcp.usebecoming.com/mcp.
Check that your AI tool can open browser windows (the consent step needs one).

Make sure pop-ups aren’t blocked for app.usebecoming.com.
Try signing in to app.usebecoming.com in the same browser first, then retry the connection.

The connection drops after some time

OAuth tokens are renewed automatically by your AI tool, but if the renewal lapses you may be asked to reconnect. Run the connect flow again — it takes seconds because the tool is already registered.

”Subscription required”

MCP access requires an active Becoming subscription (or library trial). Renewing the subscription restores MCP access automatically — no need to reconnect. Theme and Practice tools additionally require The Academy.

An assistant can’t generate a Theme or complete a Practice

Confirm you’re on The Academy — Theme and Practice tools aren’t available on The Library.
Confirm you granted the matching write scope (e.g. practices:write) when you connected. If not, reconnect and approve it.

I revoked a connection by accident

Just reconnect from your AI tool. Each connection is independent, so reconnecting creates a fresh grant.

Privacy note

When an external AI tool reads from your Becoming library, the contents of those highlights and notes flow through that tool’s provider for the duration of the conversation. Only connect tools whose privacy policies you trust.