Integrate Dify with Live Typeform Data via CData Connect AI
Dify is an open source platform for building production-ready agentic workflows, chatbots, and other LLM applications. It includes built-in, two-way support for the model context protocol (MCP), allowing you to register remote MCP servers as tools in the platform to add external data sources and give your agents access to live data.
By integrating Dify with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP Server, Dify gains governed, real-time access to live Typeform data. You can list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from Typeform data using natural language prompts, with all data access running securely against authorized sources.
This article explains how to configure Typeform connectivity in Connect AI, generate the required personal access token, register the Connect AI MCP Server as a tool in Dify, add it to an agent application, and verify the integration by querying live Typeform data from Dify.
Step 1: Configure Typeform connectivity for Dify
Connectivity to Typeform from Dify is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Typeform data from Dify, start by creating and configuring a Typeform connection in Connect AI.
- Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
- Select Typeform from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Typeform.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the TypeForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\TypeForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for TypeForm (see below).
TypeForm API Profile Settings
Authentication to TypeForm uses the OAuth standard.
To authenticate to TypeForm, you must first register and configure an OAuth application with TypeForm here: https://admin.typeform.com/account#/section/tokens. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret which can be set in the connection string. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://developer.typeform.com/get-started/.
Note that there are several different use scenarios which all require different redirect URIs:
- CData Desktop Applications: CData desktop applications (Sync, API Server, ArcESB) accept OAuth tokens at /src/oauthCallback.rst. The host and port is the same as the default port used by the application. For example, if you use http://localhost:8019/ to access CData Sync then the redirect URI will be http://localhost:8019/src/oauthCallback.rst.
- CData Cloud Applications: CData cloud applications are similar to their desktop counterparts. If you access Connect AI at https://1.2.3.4/ then you should use the redirect https://1.2.3.4/src/oauthCallback.rst.
- Desktop Application: When using a desktop application, the URI https://localhost:33333 is recommended.
- Web Application: When developing a web application using the driver, use your own URI here such as https://my-website.com/oauth.
After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:
- AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
- OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
- OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
- CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
- Click Save & Test
- 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 Dify. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.
- Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
- On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
- Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create
- Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again
With the Typeform connection configured and a PAT generated, Dify can now connect to Typeform data through Connect AI.
Step 2: Register the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify
Next, register the Connect AI Remote MCP Server as a tool in Dify so your agents and workflows can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.
- Log into Dify, or open your self-hosted Dify instance (version 1.6.0 or later, which includes built-in MCP support)
- Navigate to the Integrations page, select Tools and click MCP tab
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Click Add MCP Server (HTTP) and enter the following details:
- Server URL: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp
- Name Icon: Give a descriptive name, for example, CData Connect AI
- Server Identifier: A unique identifier, for example, cdata-connect-ai
- Headers: Add an Authorization header with the value Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT
Note: Dify will use Basic authentication with Connect AI. Combine your Connect AI user email and the PAT you created earlier in the format email:PAT, base64 encode the combined string, and prefix it with Basic.
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Click Add & Authorize. Dify connects to the Connect AI MCP Server and lists the available tools
With the MCP server registered, the Connect AI tools are available to any agent application or workflow in your Dify workspace.
Step 3: Query live Typeform data from Dify
With the integration complete, build an agent application in Dify and interact with live Typeform data through natural language prompts.
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From the Dify Studio page, click Create from Blank and select Agent as the application type
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In the agent configuration, click Add under the Tools section and select the Connect AI MCP tools registered in Step 2
- Select an LLM provider and model for the agent so it can interpret prompts and call MCP tools
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In the preview panel, type a prompt in the chat input, for example:
- Use the cdata-connect-ai tools to list all available catalogs
- Show the available schemas and tables for Typeform
- Query the top 5 records from a table in Typeform
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The Dify agent calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Typeform data
At this point, Dify communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Typeform data through remote MCP tools directly from your agentic workflows.
Get started with CData Connect AI
To access hundreds of 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, and our Support Team is available to help with any questions you have.