What is MCP? A guide for people who run a team
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets an AI assistant read and change your tools. A tool offers an MCP server. The assistant connects to it and works inside that tool for you.
This guide is for the person who runs a team and has to say yes or no. It is one of the plain explainers on our blog.
What an assistant can touch
Each MCP server has a list of tools. A tool here is one thing the assistant may do, like "search tasks" or "add a comment". Some tools only read. Others write: they move cards, change dates or log time.
The server decides the list, not the assistant. If the server has no delete tool, the assistant cannot delete. So the first question for any product is what is on its list.
MCP is not rare any more. Linear, Jira, Asana, ClickUp, Notion, monday.com and GitHub all have MCP servers. devBoard has one too.
Tokens and roles
An assistant signs in with a token. A token is a long secret string that proves who you are, like a password for a program. Whoever holds it can act as you.
Most servers tie a token to one person. The assistant then works with that person's role. If Ivan is a member, his assistant can do what a member can do, and no more. Every change shows up under Ivan's name.
That is the part a team lead should like. Nobody gets new rights. The assistant is a faster pair of hands for someone who already had access.
An example
Luka, Mira and Ivan run a small studio and keep a plain kanban board. Kanban is a board with a column for each stage of work. Luka writes code in Claude Code all day. He types "start APP-42".
The assistant assigns him the task, moves the card to In progress and starts his timer. It also gives him a branch name. A branch is a separate copy of the code where one change is made.
An hour later he types "done with APP-42". The timer stops, a comment goes on the task, and the card moves on. Mira sees all of it in the task's history, under Luka's name. Time tracking shows where those minutes end up.
When to use it
MCP pays off for people who spend the day in an editor or in a chat with an assistant. They can change a task without switching apps. It also helps with questions like "what is on my plate this week?"
It is a poor fit for big clean-ups that nobody checks. An assistant can move fifty cards in a minute. If the request was wrong, so are fifty cards.
Common mistakes
- Sharing one token across the whole team. You lose track of who did what, and you cannot cut off one person.
- Pasting a token into a file that gets shared with the code. Anyone who can read the file can use it.
- Never revoking. To revoke a token is to switch it off for good. When someone leaves, their tokens should go too.
- Not reading what it changed. Look at the history after a big request.
How to keep a devBoard token safe has the full list.
How devBoard handles it
devBoard's MCP server is at https://api.getdevboard.app/mcp. You make a token in the Mac app, under Settings → Developer. A token belongs to one workspace and acts as you, with your role. Guests cannot make one. We store only a scrambled form of the token, called a hash, so we cannot read it back. You can revoke it at any time. The server has 29 tools, from search to time tracking. It cannot delete items or manage members, projects, columns or attachments. It works with Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Claude Desktop. It also reaches devBoard from computers without the app, which matters because devBoard has no web version. Our MCP page has the setup, and the Claude Code guide takes about two minutes.
Questions people ask
Is MCP safe to turn on for my team?
It is as safe as the token behind it. The assistant can do what the person who made the token can do. Give each person their own token, and revoke it when they leave.
Does the AI company see our tasks?
The assistant reads what it fetches, and that text goes to the AI model you use. Check that model's data rules, the same way you would for your code.
Can an assistant delete our tasks in devBoard?
No. It can archive a task, but not delete it. It also cannot manage members, projects, columns or attachments. Those stay in the app.
Free while in early access; paid plans will be one plain number, posted here first.
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