Query Live Odoo Data in Zed Editor via CData Connect AI

Yazhini G
Yazhini G
Technical Marketing Engineer
Leverage the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Zed Editor to securely access and query live Odoo data directly from the development environment.

Zed is a high-performance, open-source code editor built for speed and collaboration. Its built-in AI agent panel supports LLM-powered interactions and MCP (Model Context Protocol) tool integrations, enabling developers to access live external data sources directly within the editor.

By integrating Zed with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server, the Zed AI agent gains governed, real-time access to live Odoo data. This enables developers to query schemas, retrieve records, and explore Odoo data without leaving the editor or writing custom integration code.

This article walks through configuring Odoo connectivity in Connect AI, registering the CData MCP Server in Zed, and querying live Odoo data from the Zed agent panel.

About Odoo Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Odoo has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access live data from both Odoo API 8.0+ and Odoo.sh Cloud ERP.
  • Extend the native Odoo features with intelligent handling of many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many data properties. CData's connectivity solutions also intelligently handle complex data properties within Odoo. In addition to columns with simple values like text and dates, there are also columns that contain multiple values on each row. The driver decodes these kinds of values differently, depending upon the type of column the value comes from:
    • Many-to-one columns are references to a single row within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-one columns are represented as integers, whose value is the ID to which they refer in the other model.
    • Many-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-many columns are represented as text containing a comma-separated list of integers. Each value in that list is the ID of a row that is being referenced.
    • One-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model - they are similar to many-to-many columns (comma-separated lists of integers), except that each row in the referenced model must belong to only one in the main model.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to call server-side RFCs within Odoo.

Users frequently integrate Odoo with analytics tools such as Power BI and Qlik Sense, and leverage our tools to replicate Odoo data to databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Step 1: Configure Odoo connectivity for Zed

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
  2. Select Odoo from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Odoo.

    To connect, set the Url to a valid Odoo site, User and Password to the connection details of the user you are connecting with, and Database to the Odoo database.

  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 Zed. 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 Odoo connection configured and a PAT generated, Zed can now connect to Odoo data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Configure Connect AI in Zed

Now, let's register the CData Connect AI MCP endpoint in Zed so that the built-in AI agent can discover and call live data tools.

  1. Download and install Zed
  2. Open the agent panel by pressing Ctrl + Shift + /, or by clicking the sparkle icon at the bottom right of the editor
  3. In the agent panel, click the ... (toggle agent menu) and select Add Custom Server from the dropdown
  4. Select the Configure Remote option to configure CData's MCP
  5. An Add MCP Server dialog opens displaying a remote server configuration template. Replace the placeholder content with the following JSON: 
    {
    "cdata": {
        "url": "https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp",
        "headers": {
            "Authorization": "Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT"
        }
    }
}

    Note: Combine your Connect AI email and PAT in the format email:PAT, Base64 encode the combined string, and prefix it with Basic. For example, given [email protected]:ABC123...XYZ, the header value becomes something like: Basic dXNlckBteWRvbWFpbjphSzkvbVB4Mi9Rcjd2TjQ...

  6. Click Add Server or press Ctrl + Enter to register the MCP server

Configure an LLM provider

Zed requires at least one LLM provider to power the agent's reasoning. Configure a provider so the agent can interpret queries and call MCP tools through Connect AI.

  1. Click the ... (toggle agent menu) and select Settings
  2. Under LLM Providers, expand your preferred provider (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Google AI) and enter your API key
  3. Under Model Context Protocol (MCP) Servers, confirm that cdata appears with a green dot and the toggle is enabled

With the MCP server registered and an LLM provider configured, the Zed agent is ready to query live Odoo data through Connect AI.

Step 3: Query live Odoo data from the Zed agent

With the integration complete, use the Zed agent panel to explore and interact with live Odoo data through natural language prompts.

  1. Open the agent panel using Ctrl + Shift + / and start a new thread
  2. Enter a prompt to interact with your data, for example:
    • List all catalogs in my cdata connection
    • Show the available schemas and tables for Odoo
    • Query the top 5 records from a table in Odoo data
  3. The agent calls the CData Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Odoo data

At this point, your Zed agent communicates with the CData Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Odoo data through remote MCP tools directly from the editor.

Get CData Connect AI

To access 300+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today! Download a free 14-day trial of CData Connect AI today, and as always, our world-class Support Team is available to assist you with any questions you may have.

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