Interact with Live Amazon Athena Data in Meta Muse via CData Connect AI

Muse is Meta's personal AI agent for iOS, Android, and the web, built on the Muse Spark models. It connects to remote model context protocol (MCP) servers, so you can point Muse at a governed data source and let it discover and call live data tools.

Connect Muse to CData Connect AI through its Remote MCP Server, and Muse gains governed, real-time access to live Amazon Athena data. You can explore data, fetch records, and interact with objects using natural language prompts, with every request running against authorized sources.

This article shows you how to configure Amazon Athena connectivity in Connect AI, generate a personal access token, create a custom connector to the Connect AI Remote MCP Server in Muse, and interact with live Amazon Athena data from Muse.

Getting Started

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Step 1: Configure Amazon Athena connectivity for Meta Muse

Connectivity to Amazon Athena from Muse is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Amazon Athena data from Muse, start by creating and configuring a Amazon Athena connection in Connect AI.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select Amazon Athena from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon Athena.

   Authenticating to Amazon Athena

   To authorize Amazon Athena requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions: Set AccessKey to the access key Id. Set SecretKey to the secret access key.

   Note: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   Obtaining the Access Key

   To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the IAM console.
   2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
   3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.

   To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
   2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
   3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

   Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

   If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set UseEC2Roles to true and leave AccessKey and SecretKey empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

   Authenticating as an AWS Role

   In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the RoleARN. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the AccessKey and SecretKey of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the AccessKey and SecretKey of an AWS root user.

   Authenticating with MFA

   For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the MFASerialNumber and MFAToken connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the TemporaryTokenDuration (default 3600 seconds).

   Connecting to Amazon Athena

   In addition to the AccessKey and SecretKey properties, specify Database, S3StagingDirectory and Region. Set Region to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set S3StagingDirectory to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

   If Database is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Muse. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.

1. Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
3. Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create

4. Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again

With the Amazon Athena connection configured and a PAT generated, Muse can now connect to Amazon Athena data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Create a custom connector to the Connect AI MCP Server in Meta Muse

Muse has no manual "add MCP server" form. Instead, you ask Muse in plain language to build a custom connector that points at the Connect AI Remote MCP Server, a hosted, public HTTPS endpoint that speaks streamable HTTP. Muse builds the connector on its secure VM using the official MCP SDK, then discovers and calls the available Connect AI data tools.

1. Open Muse on iOS, Android, or the web and start a new chat
2. Ask Muse to build a custom connector to the Connect AI Remote MCP Server, giving it the server URL and noting that the endpoint is a hosted MCP server over streamable HTTP, for example:
   Create a custom connector to CData Connect AI. It is a hosted MCP server over streamable HTTP at https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp and it requires an Authorization header.
3. When Muse prompts for credentials, it opens a secure entry flow, separate from the chat, that saves the value in its Secure Credentials Store. Enter the Authorization header value in the format Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT

   Note: For the Authorization value, base64 encode email:PAT and prefix it with Basic. Enter it only in Muse's secure credential prompt, never in the chat.

4. Muse connects to the Connect AI MCP Server and lists the available data tools. Review the custom connector confirmation, then click Continue. When Muse offers to save the integration as a skill, choose yes so the connector is available in every future chat

With the custom connector saved, the Connect AI tools are available to Muse in any chat.

Step 3: Interact with live Amazon Athena data from Meta Muse

With the integration complete, interact with live Amazon Athena data directly from Muse through natural language prompts.

1. In a Muse chat, type a prompt that uses the Connect AI connector, for example:
   • Use the CData Connect AI connector to list all available connections
   • Show the available objects and fields for Amazon Athena
   • Fetch the top 5 records from Amazon Athena
2. Approve the tool call in the Sentinel dialog when prompted
3. Muse calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Amazon Athena data

At this point, Muse communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Amazon Athena data through remote MCP tools directly from your chats.

Get started with CData Connect AI

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