MCP Solutions for Headless Development
Salesforce offers Model Context Protocol (MCP) solutions that developers can use to access Salesforce features and services through AI applications.
Building custom integrations between AI applications and enterprise platforms typically requires significant development effort for each use case. MCP eliminates this complexity by providing an open standard that lets AI applications securely interact with external systems and services through pre-built connections. Instead of building custom integrations, developers can use these ready-made MCP servers to instantly connect their AI applications to Salesforce, Heroku, Tableau, and MuleSoft features and services.
Here’s how you interact with MCP-enabled AI solutions:
- From your AI application, ask questions or request actions related to the connected service
- The AI application connects to the appropriate MCP server
- The MCP server securely processes the request on the target platform
- Data or action results return to the AI application
- The AI application displays information or confirms completed actions
This approach transforms development by providing immediate access to enterprise data and services without the need to learn platform-specific APIs, CLIs, or authentication flows.
Which MCP Server Should I Use?
This table describes all of the Salesforce MCP servers, what they do, and when to use them.
| MCP server | Use it when | Authenticates to a Salesforce Org | Acts on Data | Acts on Metadata |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archive Connect Exposes archive data management capabilities. | Use it when you want to search archived data, analyze archive storage usage, unarchive records, anonymize personal data, and delete archived records. Archive Connect MCP Server | Yes | Yes | No |
| Backup and Recover Exposes data backup and recovery functionality. You can start a data backup, investigate data loss, and review backup and recover audit log events. | Use it when you want to query and inspect backups, start a backup, compare backups, query the org’s backup configuration, and review backup restore results. Restoring a backup and any other destructive functions must be done in the UI. Backup and Recover MCP Server | Yes | Yes | No |
| Content Read-Only and Content Write Allows you to query, create, and update Salesforce CMS (Content Management System) data. | Use it when you want to create, edit, and manage CMS content, folders, workspaces, and channels. Content Read-Only MCP Server Content Write MCP Server | Yes | Yes | No |
| CRM Analytics (Beta) Gives you direct, read-only access to CRM Analytics without any custom integration. | Use it when you want to query and get data insights. You want to query apps, datasets, and dashboards in an org. CRM Analytics MCP Server (Beta) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Data 360 Enables you to query, create, update, and delete Data 360 data and Data 360 elements such as DLOs, DMOs, segments, data kits, and so on. | Use it when you want to query Data 360 data or create, update, or delete Data 360 data or objects. You want to ingest, transform, and activate data. You want to configure data mappings, identity resolution, and so on. Data 360 MCP Server | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data 360 Legacy Provides the ability to query Data 360 data in a particular data space or via SQL queries. | Superseded by the Data 360 MCP server. Use that instead. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Headless 360 (Beta) Provides the full breadth of Salesforce functionality. The number of Salesforce operations continues to grow. | Use it when you want to query, create, and update Salesforce data; manage users including creating, deactivating, and assigning permission sets and permission set licenses; read, write, and deploy Apex triggers; manage platform events, Change Data Capture, and event replays; create named credentials, manage Commerce Cloud orders. Headless 360 MCP Server (Beta) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Heroku Exposes the functionality of the Heroku platform. | Use it when you want to read and manage apps, teams, and projects hosted on Heroku. Heroku MCP Server GitHub | No | No | Yes |
| Metadata API Context (Beta) Provides context about metadata in an org. Commonly used in development scenarios to provide context about metadata in an org. | Use it when you want to query org metadata to discover metadata types, fields, field data types, field metadata, and constraints. Quick Start: Metadata API Context MCP Tools | Yes | No | Yes |
| MuleSoft DX Exposes the MuleSoft AnyPoint Platform functionality. Used in development scenarios. | Use it when you want to create and deploy Mule applications, create API specs, search for assets in Anypoint Exchange, get platform insights, and so on. Getting Started with MuleSoft DX MCP Server | No | No | Yes |
| MuleSoft Platform Provides access to APIs, agents, MCP servers, and LLMs. | Use it when you want to scan, discover, govern, and monitor servers, APIs, MCP servers, and LLMs across your infrastructure. Getting Started with MuleSoft Platform MCP Server | No | No | No |
| Salesforce DX Exposes functionality that’s commonly used in Salesforce development scenarios. | Use it when you want to query org information, get user information, assign permission sets to users, run SOQL queries, or run Apex tests. You want to deploy and retrieve metadata from your org to your DX project and interact with DevOps Center. Salesforce DX MCP Server and Tools | Yes | No | Yes |
| SObject All Exposes all standard and custom objects and provides all functionality: create, read, update, delete, query, search, and relationship traversal. | Use it when you want to query and update Salesforce data. SObject All | Yes | Yes | No |
| SObject Reads A scoped server that limits you to query-only (read) access to data. | Use it when you want to read Salesforce data. SObject Reads | Yes | Yes | No |
| SObject Mutations A scoped server that gives you write access to data so you can create and update Salesforce records. However, you can’t delete records. | Use it when you want to create and update Salesforce data. SObject Mutations | Yes | Yes | No |
| SObject Deletes A scoped server that allows you to remove records from Salesforce. | Use it when you want to delete Salesforce data. SObject Deletes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Tableau Next Exposes Tableau Next’s semantic layer and analytics capabilities. | Use it when you want to interact with your analytic ecosystem and explore what dashboards are available, retrieve visualization metadata, or discover metrics and KPIs. Tableau Next | Yes | No | Yes |
| Tableau Provides the ability to interact with Tableau Public. | Use it when you want query and management access to Tableau projects, workbooks, views, jobs, users, Pulse metrics, and their underlying data. With these tools, you can perform analytics tasks and perform key management tasks for workbooks and sites with published or embedded data. Tableau MCP Introduction | No | No | Yes |
To register, track, and manage the MCP servers and APIs connected to your org, use the API Catalog Connect REST API.
Note
See Also
- Salesforce Developers Blog: Introducing MCP Support Across Salesforce
- YouTube: Agentforce AMA: Supercharge Development with MCP
- Salesforce Developers: API Catalog Connect REST API
j