MCP Upstreams
Connect your own MCP servers as upstream tool providers through SatGate.
What are upstreams?
An upstream is an MCP server that provides tools. SatGate sits between your agent (Cursor, Claude Code) and your upstreams, adding authentication, cost tracking, and budget enforcement to every tool call.
You can connect multiple upstreams per tenant. SatGate discovers tools from all upstreams and presents them as a unified tool set to your agents.
Supported transports
SSE
Server-Sent Events. Long-lived HTTP connection. Most common for hosted MCP servers.
Streamable HTTP
Newer MCP transport. Request-response with optional streaming. Preferred for new servers.
stdio
Standard I/O. For local processes. Not supported for cloud-hosted upstreams.
Adding an upstream
- Go to MCP Upstreams in the dashboard
- Click "Add Upstream"
- Enter the upstream name and URL
- Select the transport type (SSE or Streamable HTTP)
- Optionally add headers (for API keys) or environment variables
- Click "Test Connection" to verify
- Save — tools are discovered automatically
Multi-upstream routing
When you have multiple upstreams, SatGate routes tool calls to the correct upstream based on which server advertised the tool. If two upstreams provide a tool with the same name, the first one wins (by registration order).
Upstreams connect in parallel for fast tool discovery. If one upstream is slow or down, others still work — partial success is OK.
Auto-reconnection
SSE and Streamable HTTP upstreams automatically reconnect if the connection drops. SatGate retries with exponential backoff (up to 5 attempts). Your agents see a brief pause but no errors unless all retries fail.