Tableau MCP Server

About

Tableau MCP server for Tableau Cloud, Tableau Server and Tableau Desktop, published first-party by Tableau under Apache-2.0 and carrying the vendor's own "Tableau Supported" badge — one of the few analytics MCP servers that is not a community reimplementation. It ships three ways and the choice matters more than the install: a hosted server at mcp.tableau.com that uses OAuth 2.1 so every user signs in with their own Tableau Cloud identity and existing per-user permissions are enforced automatically; a self-hosted npm package, @tableau/mcp-server, run over stdio or HTTP for Tableau Server and for Cloud customers who need their own infrastructure; and a Docker/Heroku deployment for shared use. The web server exposes 43 tools across sixteen groups: datasource discovery and VizQL querying (list-datasources, get-datasource-metadata, query-datasource), workbook and view retrieval including rendered images (get-view-image, get-custom-view-image), Tableau Pulse metric definitions and generated insight briefs, Prep flow runs, extract-refresh tasks and jobs, user administration, Admin Insights queries, and MCP-Apps tools that render an interactive viz inside the client. A separate desktop build adds six authoring tools that read and apply workbook XML against a running Tableau Desktop instance. Self-hosted authentication is a Personal Access Token by default (PAT_NAME plus PAT_VALUE), with Connected App direct-trust JWT, user-attribute tokens and full OAuth 2.1 also supported. Requires Node.js 22.7.5 or later. Actively maintained — v4.6.0, last pushed August 2026.

Installation

npx -y @tableau/mcp-server@latest

Connecting the Tableau MCP server

1. 1.Decide hosted or self-hosted before anything else

   On Tableau Cloud, point your client at the hosted server and stop — there is no install, no token to mint and no Node version to satisfy. Every MCP-compatible client that supports remote servers and OAuth will prompt you to sign in to Tableau on first use, and per-user permissions are enforced automatically. Only continue to step 2 if you are on Tableau Server, or if you need the server on your own infrastructure.

   hosted endpoint

   https://mcp.tableau.com

2. 2.Check your Node version first

   The package declares engines.node >= 22.7.5. That is a newer floor than most MCP servers and it is the most common reason a first npx run fails with a syntax error rather than a clean message. Confirm before you write any config.

   shell

   node --version   # must be >= 22.7.5

3. 3.Create a Personal Access Token on your Tableau site

   Self-hosted defaults to PAT auth. In Tableau, open your account settings, create a Personal Access Token, and keep both halves: the token name goes in PAT_NAME and the secret in PAT_VALUE. The server refuses to start without both — config.ts asserts each one individually. SITE_NAME is the site’s URL name, not its display name; on Tableau Cloud it is the segment that appears after /site/ in the browser address bar, and on a Server default site it is the empty string.

4. 4.Add the server to your MCP client

   This is the configuration from the project README, unmodified. It works as-is in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and any other client that accepts the standard mcpServers block — the only difference between them is which JSON file it goes in.

   claude_desktop_config.json

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "tableau": {
         "command": "npx",
         "args": ["-y", "@tableau/mcp-server@latest"],
         "env": {
           "SERVER": "https://my-tableau-server.com",
           "SITE_NAME": "my_site",
           "PAT_NAME": "my_pat",
           "PAT_VALUE": "pat_value"
         }
       }
     }
   }

5. 5.Turn on the tool groups that ship disabled

   Admin Insights, Prep flow and generated-insight tools are gated behind three separate flags that default to off, and each is compared literally against the string "true". If query-admin-insights, the four flow tools or generate-insight-cards are missing from your client’s tool list, this is why — it is not a permissions problem on the Tableau side.

   env additions

   "ADMIN_TOOLS_ENABLED": "true",
   "FLOW_TOOLS_ENABLED": "true",
   "INSIGHTS_TOOLS_ENABLED": "true"

6. 6.Smoke test with a content query, not a data query

   Ask the client to list your workbooks before you ask it anything about numbers. list-workbooks exercises the auth handshake and the site name without depending on a datasource being queryable, so a failure points at exactly one thing. Once that returns, move on to query-datasource.

   prompt

   Find me the most viewed workbook within the last year.

43 web tools in 16 groups, plus 6 desktop authoring tools

Grouped as the project groups them — the group names are also the values INCLUDE_TOOLS and EXCLUDE_TOOLS accept, so you can scope the server to "datasource,view" rather than listing tools one by one. Three groups are disabled by default; see the setup step above.

What people use it for

Which one should you use?

Tableau is one of the few analytics vendors that ships its own server, so the comparison worth making is against the other BI servers you might be connecting the same agent to.

Categories

Works With

Frequently Asked Questions