Connect Tableau Server to Claude Code via MCP + PAT

You can connect Claude Code to Tableau Server using the official Tableau MCP server. Once set up, Claude Code can browse your published workbooks, query data sources, and pull view metadata from any session. Authentication uses a Personal Access Token (PAT), so you do not have to ship your password through environment variables.

What you’ll achieve

• Claude Code can list workbooks, views, and data sources on your Tableau Server.
• Authentication runs through a Personal Access Token, scoped to your user account.
• One user-scoped registration, available in every Claude Code session.

Tutorial setup 3 prerequisites · 5 values

Requirements

• Claude Code — installed and working from your terminal.
• Node.js — the MCP server runs via npx. The LTS version from nodejs.org is fine.
• A Tableau Server account — with permission to create Personal Access Tokens. If the server admin has disabled PATs, ask them to enable them under Settings → Personal Access Tokens.

Your values

TABLEAU_SERVER · Your Tableau Server URL

TABLEAU_SITE · Site name (content URL)

TABLEAU_PAT_NAME · The PAT name you'll create in Step 1

Step-by-step guide

Step 1: Create a Personal Access Token

In Tableau Server, click your avatar in the top-right and open My Account Settings. Scroll down to Personal Access Tokens, give the token a name (use the same value you entered in {{TABLEAU_PAT_NAME}} above), and click Create new token.

Tableau shows the secret value once. Copy it now — you will paste it into the command in Step 3. If you lose it, you have to create a new token.

Step 2: Find your site name

Tableau Server uses the content URL of a site as its identifier — not the human-readable display name. Open Tableau in your browser and look at the URL after /#/site/:

https://tableau.your-company.com/#/site/HR/views
                                       ^^
                                       site name

If your URL has no /site/ segment, you are on the default site and the site name is an empty string ("").

Step 3: Register the MCP server

Run this in your terminal — your values from the boxes above are already substituted in. Replace your-very-long-pat-secret-here with the PAT secret you copied in Step 1:

claude mcp add-json tableau --scope user '{
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "@tableau/mcp-server@latest"],
  "env": {
    "SERVER": "{{TABLEAU_SERVER}}",
    "SITE_NAME": "{{TABLEAU_SITE}}",
    "PAT_NAME": "{{TABLEAU_PAT_NAME}}",
    "PAT_VALUE": "your-very-long-pat-secret-here"
  }
}'

--scope user registers the server in your user-level Claude Code config so it shows up in every project. The npx -y runs the latest published @tableau/mcp-server without a global install.

Verification / Testing

Restart Claude Code and ask something like “list my Tableau workbooks” or “show me the data sources on the HR site”. You should see tool calls to the tableau server in the transcript, and the results should match what you see in the Tableau UI.

If nothing happens, run claude mcp list in a fresh terminal to confirm tableau is registered under your user scope.

Troubleshooting

• 401 Unauthorized on every call. The PAT secret in PAT_VALUE is wrong, or the PAT name in PAT_NAME does not match the token you created. Tableau requires both fields to match the token record exactly.
• Site not found. You used the site’s display name instead of its content URL. Re-check the URL bar after /#/site/ (see Step 2). For the default site, leave SITE_NAME empty.
• Tool calls work but return nothing. Your PAT inherits your user’s permissions. If you cannot see a workbook in the Tableau UI, the MCP server cannot see it either — ask the project owner to grant access.
• PATs are disabled error. Your server admin has not enabled Personal Access Tokens at the server level. Send them to Settings → Personal Access Tokens and ask them to flip the switch.

What you learned

• How Claude Code’s claude mcp add-json registers MCP servers via inline JSON, with --scope user making them global.
• Why Tableau’s PAT flow is the right auth model for non-interactive clients, and where to find the secret in My Account Settings.
• The difference between a Tableau site’s display name and its content URL — only the content URL works as SITE_NAME.