Connecting Mastra with SAP Ariba Source Data via CData Connect AI MCP Server

Mastra is designed for developers and enterprise teams building intelligent, composable AI agents. Its modular framework and declarative architecture make it simple to orchestrate agents, integrate LLMs, and automate data-driven workflows. But when agents need to work with data beyond their local memory or predefined APIs, many implementations rely on custom middleware or scheduled syncs to copy data from external systems into local stores. This approach adds complexity, increases maintenance overhead, introduces latency, and limits the real-time potential of your agents.

CData Connect AI bridges this gap with live, direct connectivity to more than 300 enterprise applications, databases, ERPs, and analytics platforms. Through CData's remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, Mastra agents can securely query, read, and act on real-time data without replication. The result is grounded responses, faster reasoning, and automated decision-making across systems all with stronger governance and fewer moving parts.

This article outlines the steps required to configure CData Connect AI MCP connectivity, register the MCP server in Mastra Studio, and build an agent that queries live SAP Ariba Source data in real time.

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

1. A CData Connect AI account
2. Node.js 18+ and npm installed
3. A working Mastra project (created via npm create mastra@latest)
4. Access to SAP Ariba Source

Credentials checklist

Ensure you have these credentials ready for the connection:

1. USERNAME: Your CData email login
2. PAT: Connect AI, go to Settings and click on Access Tokens (copy once)
3. MCP_BASE_URL: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp

Step 1: Configure SAP Ariba Source connectivity for Mastra

Connectivity to SAP Ariba Source from Mastra is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with SAP Ariba Source data from Mastra, we start by creating and configuring a SAP Ariba Source connection in CData Connect AI.

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

2. Select "SAP Ariba Source" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP Ariba Source.

   In order to connect with SAP Ariba Source, set the following:

   • API: Specify which API you would like the provider to retrieve SAP Ariba data from. Select the Supplier, Sourcing Project Management, or Contract API based on your business role (possible values are SupplierDataAPIWithPaginationV4, SourcingProjectManagementAPIV2, or ContractAPIV1).
   • DataCenter: The data center where your account's data is hosted.
   • Realm: The name of the site you want to access.
   • Environment: Indicate whether you are connecting to a test or production environment (possible values are TEST or PRODUCTION).

   If you are connecting to the Supplier Data API or the Contract API, additionally set the following:

   • User: Id of the user on whose behalf API calls are invoked.
   • PasswordAdapter: The password associated with the authenticating User.

   If you're connecting to the Supplier API, set ProjectId to the Id of the sourcing project you want to retrieve data from.

   Authenticating with OAuth

   After setting connection properties, you need to configure OAuth connectivity to authenticate.

   • Set AuthScheme to OAuthClient.
   • Register an application with the service to obtain the APIKey, OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret.

     For more information on creating an OAuth application, refer to the Help documentation.

   Automatic OAuth

   After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

   APIKey: The Application key in your app settings. OAuthClientId: The OAuth Client Id in your app settings. OAuthClientSecret: The OAuth Secret in your app settings.

   When you connect, the provider automatically completes the OAuth process:

   1. The provider obtains an access token from SAP Ariba and uses it to request data.
   2. The provider refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.
   3. The OAuth values are saved in memory relative to the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP Ariba Source 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 Mastra. 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 SAP Ariba Source data from Mastra.

Step 2: Set up the Mastra project

• Open a terminal and navigate to your desired folder
• Create a new project:

  npm create mastra@latest


• Open the folder in VS Code
• Install the required Mastra dependencies:

  npm install @mastra/core @mastra/libsql @mastra/memory

• Then install the MCP integration package separately:

  npm install @mastra/mcp

Step 3: Configure environment variables

Create a .env file at the project root with the following keys:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
[email protected]
CDATA_CONNECT_AI_PASSWORD=your_PAT

Restart your dev server after saving changes:

npm run dev

Step 4: Add the CData Connect AI agent

Create a file src/mastra/agents/connect-ai-agent.ts with the following code:

import { Agent } from "@mastra/core/agent";
import { Memory } from "@mastra/memory";
import { LibSQLStore } from "@mastra/libsql";
import { MCPClient } from "@mastra/mcp";

const mcpClient = new MCPClient({
  servers: {
    cdataConnectAI: {
      url: new URL("https://connect.cdata.com/mcp/"),
      requestInit: {
        headers: {
          Authorization: `Basic ${Buffer.from(
            `${process.env.CDATA_CONNECT_AI_USER}:${process.env.CDATA_CONNECT_AI_PASSWORD}`
          ).toString("base64")}`,
        },
      },
    },
  },
});

export const connectAIAgent = new Agent({
  name: "Connect AI Agent",
  instructions: "You are a data exploration and analysis assistant with access to CData Connect AI.",
  model: "openai/gpt-4o-mini",
  tools: await mcpClient.getTools(),
  memory: new Memory({
    storage: new LibSQLStore({ url: "file:../mastra.db" }),
  }),
});

Step 5: Update index.ts to register the agent

Replace the contents of src/mastra/index.ts with:

import { Mastra } from "@mastra/core/mastra";
import { PinoLogger } from "@mastra/loggers";
import { LibSQLStore } from "@mastra/libsql";
import { connectAIAgent } from "./agents/connect-ai-agent.js";

export const mastra = new Mastra({
  agents: { connectAIAgent },
  storage: new LibSQLStore({ url: "file:../mastra.db" }),
  logger: new PinoLogger({ name: "Mastra", level: "info" }),
  observability: { default: { enabled: true } },
});

Step 6: Run and verify the connection

Start your Mastra server:

npm run dev



Step 7: Run a live query in Mastra Studio

In Mastra Studio, open the chat interface and enter one of the following sample prompts:

List available catalogs from my connected data sources.



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