---
name: connect-workflow
description: Find the gateway to point this plugin at in MetaForge. Use when the user asks to find the gateway to point this plugin at.
---

# Find the gateway to point this plugin at

Work out which MetaForge gateway this machine should use.

If the `forge` CLI is installed, run `forge connect`. It probes the usual local endpoints plus anything already configured, and prints the URL to use. It exits non-zero when it finds nothing.

If `forge` is not installed, POST an MCP `initialize` to each candidate and look at `result.serverInfo.name`:
- `http://localhost:8765/mcp` (the MCP sidecar in the standard compose file)
- `http://localhost:8000/mcp` (a gateway serving MCP itself)

Only treat a candidate as the gateway when it answers and names itself `metaforge-mcp`. Something listening on the port is not the same thing: a dev machine has plenty of services, and another MCP server will answer `initialize` perfectly happily. A 401 or 403 *is* a match -- the URL is right and a token is the next step.

Then tell the user what to do with it: put the URL in the plugin's `gateway_url` setting. If nothing was found, say so and give them the three options -- start one with `docker compose up gateway`, enter a team or hosted URL, or install the `metaforge-local` package, which runs MetaForge as a local process and needs no gateway at all. Do not guess a URL on their behalf.