> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://v2.dataos.info/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://v2.dataos.info/consume/v1/consume-with-ai/overview.md).

# Overview

Data Product MCP connects Model Context Protocol (MCP)-compatible AI assistants and agentic frameworks to your Data Products. Once connected, you can discover products, ask business questions, inspect health and lineage, and find the right owner, all in natural language. This is the AI mode of the consumer journey: the same discover, evaluate, and activate steps run through conversation.

To start, pick the tool you already work in. From a product page, select **Activate → MCP** to open **Connect with MCP**, then choose a client or framework.

## How it works

Data Product MCP exposes products to AI tools through this protocol. The assistant does not get an unrestricted database connection. It calls Data Product MCP tools, and those tools route through Data Product APIs, authorization, semantic definitions, quality checks, lineage, and ownership metadata. That gives consumers one governed entry point:

<table><thead><tr><th width="138.78173828125">Need</th><th>What Data Product MCP does</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Find</td><td>Locate products by topic, domain, owner, metric, or business question</td></tr><tr><td>Trust</td><td>Review semantic fields, quality, run history, lineage, profile, limitations, and owner</td></tr><tr><td>Ask</td><td>Query governed metrics and dimensions through the semantic layer</td></tr><tr><td>Act</td><td>Use failure details and owner context to follow up with the right team</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Governance and trust

Data Product MCP inherits product governance. Every tool call now runs through the same policy enforcement point (PEP) as the rest of the platform, in addition to inheriting the upstream governance of the products it queries. Every request carries the user's own credentials, and DataOS authorizes it before returning data. The assistant sees only the products, tables, columns, and values the user is allowed to access; a masked column comes back masked, and an inaccessible product never appears in discovery, lineage, profile, or query responses.

Access is configured the same way as any other platform service, through standard policy grants: the `mcp-tool-read` grant under the `use-mcp-service` policy use case, or a tenant role such as `data_consumer` or `data_developer` on any tenant on the instance. If you hit authentication errors after setup, ask your administrator for one of these. See the [AI activation reference](https://v2.dataos.info/references/interfaces/ai-activation) for the full trust model.

The assistant does not invent data. It translates the question into structured tool calls and returns responses that cite the metric, model, quality, lineage, run, or owner. For analytical answers it names the metric and the source product; when a question cannot be answered from the available semantic surface, it returns a clear limitation instead of fabricating a measure. Query responses also state when row output was capped by the platform's row limit, so you can tell a preview from a full result set.

## Get connected

* [Connect a client](/consume/v1/consume-with-ai/connect-a-client.md): Claude, Cursor, Copilot in VS Code, ChatGPT Desktop (Codex), or a custom MCP client.
* [Connect an agentic framework](/consume/v1/consume-with-ai/connect-an-agentic-framework.md): LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, AgentScope, or a custom framework.

Then use the AI mode of each journey step:

* [Discover in natural language](/consume/v1/consume-with-ai/discover-in-natural-language.md): find relevant products by describing what you need.
* [Understand in natural language](/consume/v1/consume-with-ai/understand-in-natural-language.md): inspect schema, quality, lineage, profiles, and runs through conversation.

For how Data Product MCP works and its trust boundaries, see the [AI activation reference](https://v2.dataos.info/references/interfaces/ai-activation) in References.


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