How to Connect to Live Okta Data from Gemini CLI (via CData Connect AI)

Gemini CLI is a command-line interface tool that provides direct access to Google's Gemini AI models for code generation, text analysis, and conversational AI capabilities. When combined with CData Connect AI Remote MCP, you can leverage Gemini CLI to interact with your Okta data in real-time through natural language queries. This article outlines the process of connecting to Okta using Connect AI Remote MCP and configuring Gemini CLI to interact with your Okta data.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Okta data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Gemini CLI and Okta. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Okta data using natural language through Gemini CLI, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Okta. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Okta data.

In this article, we show how to configure Gemini CLI to conversationally explore (or Vibe Query) your data using natural language. With Connect AI you can query and interact with live Okta data, plus hundreds of other sources.

Step 1: Configure Okta Connectivity for Gemini CLI

Connectivity to Okta from Gemini CLI is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with Okta data from Gemini CLI, we start by creating and configuring a Okta connection in CData Connect AI.

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

2. Select "Okta" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Okta.

   To connect to Okta, set the Domain connection string property to your Okta domain.

   You will use OAuth to authenticate with Okta, so you need to create a custom OAuth application.

   Creating a Custom OAuth Application

   From your Okta account:

   1. Sign in to your Okta developer edition organization with your administrator account.
   2. In the Admin Console, go to Applications > Applications.
   3. Click Create App Integration.
   4. For the Sign-in method, select OIDC - OpenID Connect.
   5. For Application type, choose Web Application.
   6. Enter a name for your custom application.
   7. Set the Grant Type to Authorization Code. If you want the token to be automatically refreshed, also check Refresh Token.
   8. Set the callback URL:
      • For desktop applications and headless machines, use http://localhost:33333 or another port number of your choice. The URI you set here becomes the CallbackURL property.
      • For web applications, set the callback URL to a trusted redirect URL. This URL is the web location the user returns to with the token that verifies that your application has been granted access.
   9. In the Assignments section, either select Limit access to selected groups and add a group, or skip group assignment for now.
   10. Save the OAuth application.
   11. The application's Client Id and Client Secret are displayed on the application's General tab. Record these for future use. You will use the Client Id to set the OAuthClientId and the Client Secret to set the OAuthClientSecret.
   12. Check the Assignments tab to confirm that all users who must access the application are assigned to the application.
   13. On the Okta API Scopes tab, select the scopes you wish to grant to the OAuth application. These scopes determine the data that the app has permission to read, so a scope for a particular view must be granted for the driver to have permission to query that view. To confirm the scopes required for each view, see the view-specific pages in Data Model < Views in the Help documentation.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Okta Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Gemini CLI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, we are ready to connect to Okta data from Gemini CLI.

Step 2: Configure Gemini CLI for CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to configure Gemini CLI to connect to CData Connect AI:

1. Ensure Gemini CLI is installed on your system. If not, install it using npm:

   npm install -g @google-gemini/cli

2. Locate your Gemini CLI settings file. If the file doesn't exist, create it:
   • Linux/Unix/Mac: ~/.gemini/settings.json
   • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\settings.json
3. Add the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to the mcpServers object in your settings file. Replace YOUR_EMAIL and YOUR_PAT with your Connect AI email address and the PAT created previously:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "cdata-connect-ai": {
         "httpUrl": "https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp",
         "headers": {
           "Authorization": "Basic YOUR_EMAIL:YOUR_PAT"
         }
       }
     }
   }    

   For example, if your email is [email protected] and your PAT is Uu90pt5vEO..., the Authorization header would be:

   "Authorization": "Basic [email protected]:Uu90pt5vEO..."

4. Save the settings file. Gemini CLI will now use the CData Connect AI MCP Server for data operations.

Step 3: Query Live Okta Data with Natural Language

With Gemini CLI configured and connected to CData Connect AI, you can now interact with your Okta data using natural language queries. The MCP integration allows you to ask questions and receive responses from the Okta data source in real-time.

Start using Gemini CLI to explore your data:

1. Open your terminal and start a Gemini CLI session:

   gemini

2. You can now use natural language to query your Okta data. For example:
   • "Show me all customers from the last 30 days"
   • "What are my top performing products?"
   • "Analyze sales trends for Q4"
   • "List all active projects with their current status"
3. Gemini CLI will automatically translate your natural language queries into appropriate SQL queries and execute them against your Okta data through the CData Connect AI MCP Server.

The combination of Gemini CLI's natural language processing capabilities and CData Connect AI's robust data connectivity enables you to explore and analyze your Okta data without writing complex SQL queries or needing deep technical knowledge of the underlying data structure.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today!