> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs-hub.magicmealkits.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Setting up
> Install the hub from the installer, connect a Google account, and connect Claude. Start here once you have beta access.
The hub gives Claude one connector that reaches several Google accounts at
once. It runs in your own Google Cloud project, so your Google sign-ins and
your bill stay yours.
Setting it up is done from the installer. You will not run any commands.
The hub is in beta and access is granted per account. If the installer page
does not show an MCP Hub section, you do not have access yet. Request it at
[hub.magicmealkits.com](https://hub.magicmealkits.com) and we will write
back.
## What you will need
* **A Google Cloud project with billing linked.** The hub costs almost nothing
to run and scales to zero when nobody is using it, but Cloud Run will not
deploy into a project with no billing account attached. If you have never
used Google Cloud, see below.
* **About twenty minutes of clicking**, in two sittings, with a wait in
between while Google approves your project. That is usually about a working
day, which is why applying is the second thing you do rather than the last.
* **A Google Workspace account, if you have one.** You can set the hub up
without one, but Google's Developer Preview application will only accept a
Workspace address. There is a way around that, covered below and in
[Developer Preview](/developer-preview).
### If you have never used Google Cloud
The installer will show **No projects found** and tell you what to do, which
is: open the Google Cloud console, accept the terms, set up billing, and come
back. Then **Create new project** on the installer makes your first one without
leaving the page.
A new project can take a few minutes to appear in the list. There is a refresh
beside the dropdown for that.
## Install it
Open [the installer](https://make.magicmealkits.com/v2/deploy) and sign in.
Scroll to **MCP Hub**.
Near the top of the page, press **Connect with Google** and pick the
account you use for Google Cloud. The installer needs this to see your
projects and to deploy into one.
In **Deploy your hub**, pick a project from the dropdown.
A project of its own is worth it. The hub is given access to secrets
across the whole project it lives in, so anything else you keep in that
project is in reach. Sharing a project works, it is just a wider door
than it needs to be.
**Region** only affects latency, but it is worth setting now: changing it
later means stopping the hub and deploying again.
**Run check** turns on the Google APIs the hub needs and tells you which
ones worked. Nothing is created and nothing is billed.
**All of them turning on does not mean you are approved.** The APIs
switch on with or without [Developer Preview](/developer-preview)
approval. This screen cannot tell you which, and without approval the
refusal arrives later, when Claude actually asks for something.
It also shows your **project number**, which is what the Developer Preview
application asks for.
Tick the acknowledgement, then press **Deploy hub**.
It takes a couple of minutes and says what it is doing as it goes. If it
stops on billing, link a billing account to the project from the button in
the message and deploy again.
Press **Open the admin UI**, paste the token into the **Admin token**
field, and sign in.
Do this now rather than later. It is the quickest way to know the install
worked, and everything after this point happens in that screen.
You do not have to write the token down anywhere clever. It stays on this
card, behind the reveal and copy buttons, whenever you come back to the
installer.
## Apply for Developer Preview
Do this next. Approval usually comes back within a working day, and
everything else can happen while you wait for it.
Google keeps the Gmail, Calendar and Drive services this hub uses closed until
your project is approved. Until then the hub runs and looks healthy, and every
request comes back refused.
The installer's **Apply for the Developer Preview Program** card opens Google's
form with your project number already in it. If the form offers **Continue
current draft**, take it.
**The email must be a Workspace address.** Google's form asks *What Email
should we grant access to Developer Preview features?* and rejects Gmail
addresses, service accounts and group addresses. This is the single most
common reason an application comes back rejected.
No Workspace account? Use the **Don't have a Workspace account?** form on the
same card and we apply on your behalf.
Fill in the remaining required fields and submit. The full picture, including
what to do while you wait, is on [Developer Preview](/developer-preview).
## Create your OAuth client
This is the one part the installer cannot do for you: Google offers no way to
create these credentials automatically, so you make them yourself in the
console. They live in your project. We never hold them.
The card has a button for each step. It takes about ten minutes and produces
two values, a **client ID** and a **client secret**, which the next section
asks for.
[Creating your OAuth client](/oauth-client) walks it through one screen at a
time, including the step that stops your accounts signing themselves out every
week.
## Add a Google account
This is where you decide which of your Google accounts the hub may act on. One
entry per account, and each one says which services it may reach. Nothing is
connected until you add it here, and removing it here disconnects it.
On the **Add your account** card, press the button to open the admin screen,
then choose **Add account**.
Give the account a short name, say whether it is a Gmail or a Workspace
account, paste in the client ID and secret from the previous step, and pick the
services you want. **Select all** turns on every service at once.
The name is what you will say to Claude when you want it to act on that
account, so keep it obvious: `personal`, `work`. Lowercase letters, numbers,
`-` and `_` only.
Then press **Connect** and sign in to Google.
### The warning about an unverified app
Google will say it has not verified this app. Expand **Advanced** and take the
"go to" link underneath.
That warning is about apps Google has not reviewed, and it is aimed at people
being sent to a stranger's app. This one is yours. You made it a few minutes
ago, in your own project, and nobody else can use it. Going ahead is the
expected path, not a risk being taken.
Next comes the permissions screen, and this is the step that catches people.
**Tick Select all.** Google leaves every box empty, and pressing Continue
without them connects the account successfully and grants nothing. It looks
like it worked. Nothing works.
Back in the admin screen the account shows as connected, with the services it
can reach. Add as many as you like, and they can be a mix of personal and work
accounts.
## Optional: open the admin screen with your Google account
Nothing above depends on this and you can come back to it any time.
This is only about how **you** get into the admin screen. Out of the box that
is the admin token, which means anyone holding the token can open it. Turning
this on lets you sign in with your Google account instead, and only the address
you signed up with is allowed through.
Token sign-in keeps working either way. This adds a door rather than moving
one.
It reuses the OAuth client you already made. The card numbers the steps and has
a button for each, in the same style as the OAuth card:
1. Copy the redirect address it shows you. This is a **second** address, for
signing in rather than for connecting accounts.
2. **Open client settings** takes you to the client you made earlier. Add the
address there, alongside the one already in the list. Do not replace it.
3. **Open consent screen** takes you to Data access, where you tick `openid`
and `email`. These say the app may see who you are and your address, and
nothing else.
4. Paste the client ID and secret back into the card and press **Apply**.
5. Open the admin screen again. There should now be a **Sign in with Google**
button on it.
## Connect Claude
Copy the MCP address from the **Connect Claude** card.
In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector, and
paste it. Leave the client secret field empty. Saving opens a browser window
where you sign in and press Allow.
The same address works in ChatGPT and in anything else that speaks MCP. The
screen it goes into is named differently in each, but the address does not
change.
That address is not a password. Anyone who has it reaches your sign-in screen
and gets no further, so it is safe in a screenshot or a support thread.
To check it worked, ask for something that names an account: *"search my last
3 emails using account personal"*.
## That is the setup done
Until Developer Preview approval lands, requests will still come back refused.
When the approval email arrives, open the admin screen and press **Refresh**
next to the schema status once, and the tools appear.
## Next
* [Upgrading](/upgrading), when a new version appears
* [Stopping the hub](/stopping), and what it takes with it
* [Developer Preview](/developer-preview), which every request depends on
* [Troubleshooting](/troubleshooting), if something is not behaving
* [What it costs to run](/cost)