Integrate Devin with Live JSON Data Using CData Connect AI

Devin is an AI software engineer from Cognition that plans, writes, and tests code in autonomous sessions. It supports the model context protocol (MCP) through its built-in MCP marketplace, allowing you to install remote MCP servers and give Devin access to external tools and live data sources.

By integrating Devin with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP Server, Devin gains governed, real-time access to live JSON services. You can list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from JSON services using natural language prompts, with all data access running securely against authorized sources.

This article explains how to configure JSON connectivity in Connect AI, install the CData Connect AI MCP Server from the Devin MCP marketplace, and verify the integration by querying live JSON services from a Devin session.

Step 1: Configure JSON connectivity for Devin

Connectivity to JSON from Devin is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with JSON services from Devin, start by creating and configuring a JSON connection in Connect AI.

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

2. Select JSON from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to JSON.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models JSON APIs as bidirectional database tables and JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

   After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

   The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

   • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your JSON data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
   • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
   • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

   See the Modeling JSON Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions

With the JSON connection configured, Devin can now connect to JSON services through Connect AI.

Step 2: Install the Connect AI MCP Server in Devin

Next, install the CData Connect AI MCP Server from the Devin MCP servers list so your sessions can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.

Note: Installing MCP servers in Devin requires the Manage MCP Servers permission. If you don't have this permission, use the Suggest option or contact your organization admin.

1. Log into Devin and navigate to Settings and Connections, then select the MCP servers tab
2. Search for CData Connect AI in the marketplace and select the verified listing

3. Click Install and enable. When prompted, complete the OAuth flow to authenticate with your Connect AI account
4. Once installed, confirm the Enable in sessions toggle is on and click Test tools. Devin validates the connection and lists the available Connect AI tools, such as getCatalogs, getSchemas, getTables, and queryData

With the MCP server installed and enabled, the Connect AI tools are available to every Devin session in your workspace.

Step 3: Query live JSON services from Devin

With the integration complete, start a Devin session and interact with live JSON services through natural language prompts.

1. From the Devin home page, start a new session
2. In the session prompt, ask Devin to work with your Connect AI data, for example:
   • Can you list the connections in CData Connect AI
   • Show the available schemas and tables for JSON
   • Query the top 5 records from a table in JSON
3. Devin calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from JSON services directly in the session. You can follow the tool calls, inputs, and outputs in the Progress panel

At this point, Devin communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live JSON services through remote MCP tools directly from your sessions, whether you're exploring data, building features against it, or automating engineering tasks.

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.