Stand up Arcade for your org
This quickstart is for platform operators who set up Arcade for a team or company. You will pick a hosting model, connect identity, create an Gateway, and enable governance.
developers who want to call should use the agent quickstart instead.
Outcomes
A running Arcade deployment with end-user identity, a gateway for agents and clients, and audit logging available by default.
You will Learn
- Choose Arcade Cloud, a marketplace deploy, or self-host with Helm
- Create administrator credentials and a
- Connect a for production identity
- Create an Gateway and point clients at it
- Use Contextual Access and Audit Logs for governance
Prerequisites
- Permission to create in Arcade (or to deploy infrastructure for self-hosting)
- An OIDC identity provider for end users (optional for first experiments; required for production )
- Familiarity with your org’s networking and compliance requirements
Choose how to run Arcade
Pick the hosting model that matches your compliance and ops model:
| Option | When to use | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Arcade Cloud | Quickest path; Arcade manages the platform | Arcade Cloud |
| Cloud marketplace | Arcade-operated platform in your cloud account | Azure, AWS, GCP |
| Self-host with Helm | Full control on your Kubernetes cluster | Helm |
See the hosting options overview for a fuller comparison.
Hosting your server with arcade deploy is a developer workflow. It does not deploy the Arcade platform.
Create administrator access
- Sign up for Arcade (Cloud) or finish your marketplace/Helm install.
- Create a project API key for administrative use.
- Confirm you can open the Dashboard for your environment.
Connect end-user identity
For production gateways, connect your OIDC provider as a User Source (Okta, Entra ID, Auth0, Clerk, Stytch, or similar).
Arcade Auth is fine for internal testing. Use a when end already live in your identity system.
Create an MCP Gateway
Create a gateway that federates the tools your agents and clients should see:
Tools can come from Arcade’s pre-built catalog, an server you deploy, or a remote MCP server you register — a gateway mixes all three.
Attach your when you configure authentication for production.
To add the gateway in Claude for your organization, an Owner adds the gateway URL as a custom connector and keeps the Detected defaults. See Keep the detected defaults.
Turn on governance
- Contextual Access: control visibility and behavior with hooks. Start with Contextual Access.
- Audit Logs: Arcade captures administrative actions by default. See Audit Logs for the dashboard and SIEM API.
Next steps
Operate overview
Deploy, secure, and govern Arcade for your organization. Written for platform operators.
MCP Gateways
Connect multiple MCP servers to your agent, application, or IDE with Arcade MCP Gateways
User Sources
Connect an OIDC identity provider to an MCP Gateway so your end users sign in with their existing identities
Deployment & hosting
Learn about the different ways to host and deploy Arcade
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