Set up the Looker MCP server

MCP Toolbox for Databases is Google's open-source MCP server that gives AI agents direct access to your Looker semantic layer — querying explores, running Looks, browsing dashboards, and generating embed URLs. This guide covers generating Looker API credentials and deploying the server in MintMCP using the pre-built mintmcp/genai-toolbox image.

Prerequisites

• A MintMCP admin account
• A Looker instance (Looker Original or Looker Google Cloud Core)

Generate Looker API credentials

For Looker Original

1. Go to your Looker instance at https://<your-company>.cloud.looker.com.
2. Navigate to Admin → Users.
3. Find the service account user and click Edit.
4. Scroll to API 4.0 Keys and click Edit Keys → New API 4.0 Key.
5. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret — the secret is shown only once.

For Looker Google Cloud Core

1. Have a Looker admin enable API credential management on the Users page.
2. Go to your Account page → API 4.0 Keys → Generate New Key.
3. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret.

Credential	Where to find it	Environment variable
Looker instance URL	Your browser's address bar (no trailing slash)	LOOKER_BASE_URL
Client ID	Admin → Users → Edit → API 4.0 Keys	LOOKER_CLIENT_ID
Client Secret	Shown once at key creation	LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET

Looker instances on port 19999 need the port in the URL, e.g. https://looker.example.com:19999.

Add Looker to MintMCP

MintMCP maintains a pre-built Docker image at docker.io/mintmcp/genai-toolbox that bundles the toolbox binary with all required runtime dependencies. You reference this image directly — no custom build needed.

1. In MintMCP, go to MCP store > Manage store.
2. Click + Add an MCP to your registry → Host an open source or custom MCP.
3. Click the Hosted Server tab, then select Advanced from the dropdown.
4. Set Command to:

toolbox --stdio --prebuilt looker

5. Set Transport to stdio.
6. Set Container Image to:

mintmcp/genai-toolbox:v0.27.0

7. Add these environment variables. Set scope to Global for a shared service account, or Per-User to prompt each user for their own credentials:

Variable	Value	Required
LOOKER_BASE_URL	Your Looker instance URL (no trailing slash)	Yes
LOOKER_CLIENT_ID	API 4.0 Client ID	Yes
LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET	API 4.0 Client Secret	Yes
LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL	true or false (default: true)	No

8. Click Create.

MintMCP pulls the image, starts the container, and runs health checks. The connector shows as active when ready.

Optional: Conversational Analytics

Swap --prebuilt looker for --prebuilt looker-conversational-analytics in the command to enable natural-language queries via Looker's Conversational Analytics API. This requires two additional environment variables:

Variable	Value
LOOKER_PROJECT	Your LookML project name
LOOKER_LOCATION	Google Cloud location (default: us)

Security considerations

• Keep the Client Secret secure — anyone with it can authenticate as the service account to your Looker instance.
• Use a dedicated Looker service account with minimum API permissions rather than an admin account.
• Set LOOKER_VERIFY_SSL to false only for internal Looker instances with self-signed certificates.
• Choose Per-User credential scope in MintMCP to attribute Looker actions to individual users rather than a shared service account.

Next steps

• Tool customization — Control which Looker tools are exposed to users
• MCP gateway administration — Manage access and permissions