How to Access Live Vercel Data in Visual Studio Code via Cline

Cline is an autonomous coding agent right in your IDE, capable of creating/editing files, running commands, using the browser, and more with your permission every step of the way. When paired with CData API Driver for MCP Server, you get live access to CRM data within your IDE, enabling you to build, test, and validate data-driven features using real-time schema and records without ever leaving your development environment.

CData MCP Server provides schema-aware context to AI tools — whether you're using it for AI-assisted code generation in IDEs like Cursor and Cline, or for querying live data through chat interfaces like Claude Desktop.

This article outlines how to run CData API Driver for MCP Server on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and connect to it from the Cline extension in Visual Studio Code on Windows.

Background

MCP Server is typically designed for clients like Claude Desktop. However, when attempting to use it via the Cline extension in Windows VS Code, the following error occurred:

MCP error -32000: Connection closed

This issue is suspected to be caused by I/O handling problems in the stdio transport implementation on the Windows version of the Cline extension.

• Related GitHub Issue: https://github.com/cline/cline/issues/3464
• Additionally, environment variables such as PATH may not be inherited correctly when launching processes like Java or Node.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio Code installed on Windows
• Cline extension installed and configured in VS Code
• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installed with a working Linux distribution (e.g., Ubuntu)
• Java 21+ JRE installed in WSL
• CData API Driver for MCP Server installed on Windows

Step 1: Authenticate with Vercel (on Windows)

Before running MCP Server in WSL, you must complete authentication flow in a Windows environment. This ensures all necessary credentials are generated and stored properly. Find and run "CData API Driver for MCP Server" or execute the JAR file to open the configuration wizard.

java -jar "C:\Program Files\CData\CData MCP Server for Vercel 20XX\lib\cdata.mcp.api.jar"

Connecting to Vercel

Using API Key Authentication

Vercel uses Bearer token authentication. You can use either a personal access token or an OAuth access token as the API key.

To obtain a personal access token:

1. Log into your Vercel account at https://vercel.com/
2. Navigate to Account Settings > Tokens.
3. Click Create Token, enter a name and expiration, and click Create.
4. Copy the generated token (it will only be shown once).

After obtaining your token, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Vercel personal access token or OAuth access token.

Example Connection String

Profile=C:\profiles\Vercel.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;APIKey=your_access_token;

Working with Teams

Many Vercel resources are scoped to a team. To scope all requests to a specific team, set the TeamId connection property to your team's ID. You can find your team ID by querying the Teams table or from the Vercel dashboard. Alternatively, you can specify TeamId in your SQL queries using the WHERE clause where supported.

Connecting to Vercel

Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to Vercel and query data from any of the available tables such as Projects, Deployments, Teams, and Domains.

Configuring MCP Server

Name your configuration (e.g. cdataapi), enter the required connection properties, and click "Connect."

Upon successful connection, the following directory and files will be created:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\CData\api Provider\
 |-- cdataapi.mcp
 |-- (other supporting config files)

Step 2: Copy the MCP Server Configuration into WSL

Next, copy the entire configuration folder from Windows into your WSL environment.

mkdir -p ~/.config/CData/
cp -r /mnt/c/Users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/CData/"api Provider" ~/.config/CData/

Ensure the destination path matches exactly: ~/.config/CData/api Provider/.

Step 3: Install MCP Server on WSL

Install Java and place the MCP Server JAR in the desired location within WSL:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-21-jre-headless
sudo mkdir -p /opt/cdata/mcp_api/lib
sudo cp /mnt/c/Program\ Files/CData/CData\ Code\ Assist\ MCP\ for\ Vercel\ 20XX/lib/cdata.mcp.api.jar /opt/cdata/mcp_api/lib/

Step 4: Configure Cline

Now, configure the Cline extension to launch MCP Server inside WSL using the wsl command.

Create or update cline_mcp_settings.json with the following content:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cdataapi": {
      "autoApprove": ["*"],
      "disabled": false,
      "timeout": 60,
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "wsl",
      "args": [
        "-d",
        "Ubuntu", // Replace with your installed WSL distro name
        "--",
        "/usr/bin/java",
        "-jar",
        "/opt/cdata/mcp_api/lib/cdata.mcp.api.jar",
        "cdataapi"
      ],
      "env": {
        "JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS": "-Xmx2g"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: Replace Ubuntu with your actual WSL distribution name (e.g., Ubuntu-22.04). Run wsl -l in PowerShell or CMD to confirm.

Step 5: Interact with Live Data in Cline

From within Visual Studio Code, you can now run MCP commands through the Cline extension.

cdataapi_get_tables
cdataapi_get_columns User

If configured correctly, these commands will return a list of available Vercel objects and metadata, allowing you to interact with your CRM schema in real time.

Try natural language prompts like:

• "Generate a React form to create a new Vercel Lead."
• "Write a Python function to pull Opportunities closed this quarter."

Build with MCP Server. Deploy with CData Drivers.

Download MCP Server for free and give your AI tools schema-aware access to live Vercel data during development. When you're ready to move to production, CData Vercel Drivers deliver the same SQL-based access with enterprise-grade performance, security, and reliability.

Visit the CData Community to share insights, ask questions, and explore what's possible with MCP-powered AI workflows.