Integrate Theia IDE with Live Dynamics 365 Business Central Data via CData Connect AI

Theia IDE is an open-source, cloud and desktop IDE platform that provides a flexible, extensible development environment with built-in AI capabilities. Its AI features support multiple LLM providers and MCP (Model Context Protocol) tool integrations, allowing developers to interact with live external data sources directly from chat-based agents inside the IDE.

By integrating Theia IDE with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP server, Theia's AI agents gain governed, real-time access to live Dynamics 365 Business Central data. This enables developers to list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from Dynamics 365 Business Central data without leaving the editor or writing custom integration code.

This article explains how to configure Dynamics 365 Business Central connectivity in Connect AI, generate the required personal access token, register the CData Connect AI MCP Server in Theia IDE, enable AI features with an LLM provider, and verify the integration by querying live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from the Theia AI Chat.

Step 1: Configure Dynamics 365 Business Central connectivity for Theia IDE

Connectivity to Dynamics 365 Business Central from Theia IDE is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Dynamics 365 Business Central data from Theia IDE, start by creating and configuring a Dynamics 365 Business Central connection in Connect AI.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a connection in Connect AI

2. Select Dynamics 365 Business Central from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

   To authenticate to Dynamics 365 Business Central, you must select an AuthScheme and provide the required properties (OAuth by default).

   All Methods

   Specify the . If you have multiple companies in your organization, you must also specify the to indicate which company you would like to connect to. does not need to be specified if you have only one company.

   Access Key

   To authenticate with an Access Key, set AuthScheme to "AccessKey" and provide the and properties.

   To obtain the and values, navigate to the Users page in Dynamics 365 Business Central and then click on Edit. The User Name and Web Service Access Key values are what you will enter as the and connection string properties. Note that the User Name is not your email address. It is a shortened user name.

   If you wish to authenticate through other methods, refer to the Help documentation.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions
👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Theia IDE. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.

1. Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
3. Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create
👁 Creating a new PAT

4. Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again

With the Dynamics 365 Business Central connection configured and a PAT generated, Theia IDE can now connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Configure Connect AI MCP in Theia IDE

Next, register the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server in Theia IDE so that the built-in AI agents can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.

1. Download and install the Theia IDE
2. Open Theia IDE and navigate to Settings (or press Ctrl + ,) to open the Settings view
3. In the Settings panel, expand AI Features and select MCP 👁 Navigating to MCP under AI Features in Theia Settings
   
4. Click Edit in settings.json to open the configuration file and paste the following JSON:

   {
    "ai-features.mcp.mcpServers": {
    "cdata": {
    "serverUrl": "https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp",
    "serverAuthToken": "Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT",
    "serverAuthTokenHeader": "Authorization"
    }
    }
   }

   Note: Theia IDE 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. For example, given [email protected]:ABC123...XYZ789, the serverAuthToken value becomes something like: Basic dXNlckBkb21haW4uY29tOkFCQzEyMy4uLlhZWjc4OQ==

   👁 Pasting the CData Connect AI MCP Server configuration in settings.json
   
5. Save the settings.json file

Enable AI and configure an LLM provider

Theia IDE requires AI features to be enabled and at least one LLM provider configured to power the agent's reasoning.

1. Return to Settings and under AI Features, select AI Enablement
2. Check the Enable AI box to activate Theia's AI capabilities 👁 Enabling AI in Theia IDE settings
   
3. Under AI Features, choose your preferred LLM provider (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Hugging Face) and enter your API key

With the MCP server registered and an LLM provider configured, Theia's AI agents are ready to query live Dynamics 365 Business Central data through Connect AI.

Step 3: Query live Dynamics 365 Business Central data from the Theia AI Chat

With the integration complete, use the Theia AI Chat panel to interact with live Dynamics 365 Business Central data.

1. Open the AI Chat panel from the right sidebar of the Theia IDE
2. At the bottom of the chat, click the Toggle Capabilities Configuration icon (or press Ctrl + Shift + .) to open the capabilities panel
3. Under Generic Capabilities, expand MCP and check the cdata server (and any specific tools you want to expose) to make the Connect AI tools available to the agent 👁 Enabling the MCP capabilities in the AI Chat
   
4. Type @AppTester in the chat input followed by your prompt, for example:
   • List all catalogs in my cdata mcp
   • Show the available schemas and tables for Dynamics 365 Business Central
   • Query the top 5 records from a table in Dynamics 365 Business Central data
5. The agent calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Dynamics 365 Business Central data 👁 Querying live data from the Theia AI Chat
   

At this point, your Theia IDE communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Dynamics 365 Business Central data through remote MCP directly from the editor.

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