Getting Started with Flow Studio MCP

What is Flow Studio MCP?

Flow Studio MCP is a cloud service that lets AI agents work with your Power Automate flows directly — building, debugging, deploying, and monitoring them without you ever opening the Power Automate portal.

You talk to your AI agent in natural language. The agent talks to Flow Studio MCP. Flow Studio MCP talks to the Power Platform APIs on your behalf.

What you can do

Once connected, you can ask your agent to do things like:

For the full list of 25+ tools available, see MCP Tools Reference.

What you need

• A Microsoft account with access to Power Automate environments
• An MCP-compatible AI agent (see setup guides below)
• A Flow Studio MCP account (free evaluation — 100 calls over 21 days, no credit card)

Step 1 — Subscribe and get your API key

1a. Sign up and activate

Go to mcp.flowstudio.app and click Get Started. Sign in with your Microsoft account.

On the Dashboard, click Start Free — 100 calls to activate the free evaluation. No credit card required. You get 100 API calls over 21 days.

1b. Grant Power Platform permissions

Flow Studio needs access to your Power Automate and Power Apps services. This uses Microsoft’s standard OAuth consent — we never see your password.

1. Click Connect next to Power Automate — you will be redirected to Microsoft to authorize
2. After Power Automate is connected, click Continue setup next to Power Apps to complete the second authorization

Both services must show Connected before you can generate your API key.

1c. Copy your API key

Once both permissions are connected, your API key appears in the Your API Key section. Click the copy button to copy it. You will need this for Step 2.

The dashboard also shows your MCP endpoint (https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp) and a Quick start JSON config you can copy directly into your agent.

Step 2 — Configure your agent

Your API key is a JWT token. The setup is different for each agent. Follow the guide for the agent you use:

GitHub Copilot (VS Code)

Create or open .vscode/mcp.json in your project root and add:

{
  "servers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "url": "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "<your-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace <your-api-key> with the API key from your dashboard. VS Code will show Running with 28 tools when the connection succeeds. To avoid committing your key to source control, add .vscode/mcp.json to your .gitignore, or use the global config via MCP: Open User Configuration command.

Optionally, install our pre-built Copilot agent skills for guided workflows. Copy the skill folders into your project’s .github/skills/ directory. See Copilot Agent Skills for details.

Claude Code (CLI)

Claude Code supports native HTTP connections to remote MCP servers. Add the following to .mcp.json in your project root (or ~/.claude.json for user-level):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "${FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Set the environment variable before running Claude Code:

export FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"

Claude Code supports ${VAR} syntax for environment variable expansion in headers.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop does not natively connect to remote HTTP MCP servers via config. You need the mcp-remote package as a bridge (requires Node.js).

Open your config file:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote@latest",
        "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY",
        "--header",
        "User-Agent: FlowStudio-MCP/1.0"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the API key you copied from the dashboard. Restart Claude Desktop after saving the file. You can also add the server via Settings > Connectors > Add to avoid editing JSON.

Cursor

Create or open .cursor/mcp.json in your project root (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "url": "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "${env:FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Set the environment variable:

export FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"

Cursor uses ${env:VAR} syntax (not ${VAR}). Native HTTP support, no wrapper needed. Restart Cursor after config changes.

Windsurf

Open ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (on Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.codeium\windsurf\mcp_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "${env:FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Set the environment variable:

export FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"

Windsurf uses serverUrl (not url). Uses ${env:VAR} syntax. You can also add the server via the MCPs icon in the Cascade panel.

JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, Rider, WebStorm)

Go to Settings > Tools > AI Assistant > Model Context Protocol (MCP) and click + to add a new server. Use the mcp-remote wrapper (requires Node.js):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flowstudio": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote@latest",
        "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your API key. Restart the IDE after adding the server.

OpenAI Codex CLI

Add the following to your ~/.codex/config.toml (global) or .codex/config.toml (project):

[mcp_servers.flowstudio]
url = "https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp"
startup_timeout_sec = 10
tool_timeout_sec = 120

[mcp_servers.flowstudio.env_http_headers]
x-api-key = "FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY"

Then set your API key as an environment variable:

export FLOWSTUDIO_API_KEY="<your-api-key>"

The env_http_headers section maps header names to environment variable names — Codex reads the value at runtime.

Important: Do not use bearer_token_env_var. That sends an Authorization: Bearer header, which Flow Studio does not accept. Use env_http_headers with x-api-key as shown above.

Codex network access: Codex blocks network access by default. You need to enable internet access for your environment and add mcp.flowstudio.app to the domain allowlist. Without this, Codex cannot reach the MCP server.

Other MCP-compatible agents (bootstrap guide)

For agents that don’t have native MCP configuration (or for “simpler” agents), you can give them the connection details directly. Paste the following into your agent’s system prompt or first message:

Endpoint:  https://mcp.flowstudio.app/mcp
Protocol:  JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP POST
Transport: Streamable HTTP — single POST per request, no SSE, no WebSocket
Auth:      x-api-key header (NOT Authorization: Bearer)

Required headers:
  Content-Type: application/json
  x-api-key: <YOUR_API_KEY>
  User-Agent: FlowStudio-MCP/1.0

Step 1 — Discover tools:
  POST {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}
  → returns all tools with names, descriptions, and input schemas
  → free — not counted against plan limits

Step 2 — Call a tool:
  POST {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call",
        "params":{"name":"<tool_name>","arguments":{...}}}

Response shape:
  Success → {"result":{"content":[{"type":"text","text":"<JSON string>"}]}}
  Error   → {"result":{"content":[{"type":"text","text":"{\"error\":{...}}"}]}}

  Always parse result.content[0].text as JSON to get the actual data.

This approach works with any agent that can make HTTP requests — no MCP SDK required. It is the most reliable method for agents that do not natively support MCP configuration.

Important: The auth header is x-api-key, not Authorization: Bearer. This is the most common setup mistake.

Step 3 — Try your first command

Once configured, start a conversation with your agent and try:

“List my Power Platform environments”

If the connection is working, you will see your environments with their names, regions, and SKUs. This confirms that your agent can reach Flow Studio MCP and your API key is valid.

Then try:

“List my flows in the default environment”

Power Platform organizes resources into environments. Most users have a default environment where their flows live.

“Show me the last 5 runs of [flow name]”

“What errors occurred in my most recent failed flow run?”

How to talk to your agent

You do not need to know tool names or API details. Just describe what you want in plain language. Here are some tips:

Be specific about which flow. Say the flow name: “Check the runs of my Invoice Processing flow” rather than “Check my flows.”

Ask follow-up questions. After seeing a failed run, ask “What went wrong?” or “Show me the error details.” Your agent remembers the context within a conversation.

Let the agent handle the technical parts. You do not need to provide environment IDs, flow GUIDs, or run IDs. The agent discovers these automatically. Just use display names.

Tell the agent what you want to achieve, not which tool to call. Say “Fix the expression error and redeploy” rather than “Call update_live_flow.”

Ask for explanations. After the agent finds an error, ask “What does this error mean?” or “How should I fix this?” The agent can explain Power Automate concepts and suggest fixes.

Troubleshooting

If your first call does not work, check these common issues:

What’s next

• Debug Power Automate Flows with MCP — Step-by-step guide to finding and fixing flow failures
• Build Power Automate Flows with MCP — Create and deploy flows from natural language
• MCP Tools Reference — Complete catalog of all 25+ tools
• Copilot Agent Skills — Pre-built skills for GitHub Copilot