MCP tools not available to agent in IntelliJ IDEA integration

[creichelt]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Somewhere else…

Describe the Bug

MCP servers configured in IntelliJ under Settings > Tools > AI Assistant > Model Context Protocol (MCP) are correctly passed to the agent during session initialization (visible in ACP transport logs via the session/new request), and the agent advertises mcpCapabilities: {"http": true, "sse": true} in its response.
However, the agent has no access to any tools provided by the configured MCP servers. It only has access to built-in tools (Shell, Read, Write, Grep, Glob, etc.). ListMcpResources returns empty results.

The MCP servers are active and show a green checkmark in IntelliJ settings. The ACP transport logs confirm they are included in the session/new payload:

"mcpServers": [
  {"type": "stdio", "name": "playwright", "command": "npx.cmd", "args": ["@playwright/mcp@latest"]},
  {"type": "stdio", "name": "kibana-mcp-server", "command": "npx.cmd", "args": ["@tocharian/[email protected]"]}
]

Has anyone gotten MCP tools working with the IntelliJ integration?

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Cursor plugin in IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3.3
2. Configure MCP servers in Settings > Tools > AI Assistant > Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• Example: playwright (npx.cmd @playwright/mcp@latest) — shows green checkmark / active
• Example: kibana-mcp-server (npx.cmd @tocharian/[email protected]) — shows green checkmark / active

3. Open a new AI Agent chat session (Agent mode)
4. Ask the agent to list or use MCP tools
5. Agent reports it has no MCP tools available — only built-in tools (Shell, Read, Write, etc.)

Expected Behavior

The agent should have access to all tools provided by the configured and active MCP servers. For example:

• Playwright MCP: browser automation tools (navigate, click, screenshot, etc.)
• Kibana MCP: query tools (search logs, list dashboards, etc.)

These tools should appear in the agent’s available tool set and be invocable during a chat session, just as they work in the Cursor standalone editor (VS Code-based).

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Cursor plugin for IntelliJ IDEA (installed since launch on Mar 4, 2026) IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3.3

For AI issues: which model did you use?

claude-opus-4-6 (thinking=true, context=200k, effort=high) Also tested implicitly with claude-sonnet-4-6 (thinking=true, context=200k, effort=medium) — same behavior.

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

(Request IDs from ACP logs — session IDs observed:)

• 435d8f5b-e39a-42f8-89e0-c9c8b6c8cff2
• 74a15ea3-a4e3-4058-9b55-b1d63a5e2a98
• 8b224ce9-470e-4485-aa74-b22c5c905982

Note: These are session IDs from the ACP transport logs. If a specific Cursor request ID is needed, please advise how to obtain it in the IntelliJ integration.

Additional Information

This may be expected given the IntelliJ integration just launched on March 4, 2026. The ACP transport logs show that:

1. MCP servers are correctly sent in the session/new request
2. The agent responds with mcpCapabilities: {“http”: true, “sse”: true}
3. But no MCP tools appear in the agent’s available tool set

This suggests the servers are acknowledged but their tools are never registered/exposed to the agent. This could be a missing feature in the IntelliJ plugin or a server-side issue where MCP tool discovery isn’t triggered for IntelliJ sessions.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[dashunzi]

I’ve also encountered this problem and haven’t found a solution yet.We hope that the authorities can resolve this issue as soon as possible.

[Ahmad_AbuSaa]

Im facing the same issue

[AdrianRomanski (Adrian Romański)]

Same here. Was going crazy for a couple of hours until i founded this thread Let’s wait then

[creichelt]

Reported also to jetbrains: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/LLM-25487

[csolorio]

Same issue found trying to use HTTP MCP servers in Jetbrains AI assistant chat. MCP servers configured both in Jetbrains (~/.ai/mcp/mcp.json) and in Cursor separately. Nothing seems to work so far.

[Colin]

Hey everyone.

As noted in the docs, MCP servers defined in a project-level or user-level .cursor/mcp.json are supported, but you’ll also need to approve their use by running the Cursor CLI (agent) from the project directory.

This should let you use those MCP servers in the IntelliJ integration.

If you don’t want to approve all servers, you can select that second option and then use /mcp enable))

[creichelt]

Hey Colin, thanks for the tip, this works! To be honest though, it feels more like a workaround. Having to install the CLI, run cursor-agent manually in the project directory, and then trust the workspace via terminal is a bit clunky. Would be great if this could be handled directly within the IDE UI in the future.

[AdrianRomanski (Adrian Romański)]

Can confirm that this does the trick, but as @creichelt stated it feels little bit hacky.

[Alext (Alex)]

agent approval did help in my case too, after that MCP became visible in IntelliJ IDEA.
But Atlassian still doesn’t actually work for me. Its status stays as requires_authentication and the tools are still unavailable in the agent.
Did anyone manage to authenticate it?