Stand up Arcade for your org
This quickstart is for platform operators who set up Arcade for a team or company. You will pick a hosting model, connect identity, create an Gateway, and enable governance.
developers who want to call should use the agent quickstart instead.
Outcomes
A running Arcade deployment with end-user identity, a gateway for agents and clients, and audit logging available by default.
You will Learn
- Choose Arcade Cloud, a marketplace deploy, or self-host with Helm
- Create administrator credentials and a
- Connect a for production identity
- Create an Gateway and point clients at it
- Use Contextual Access and Audit Logs for governance
Prerequisites
- Permission to create in Arcade (or to deploy infrastructure for self-hosting)
- An OIDC identity provider for end users (optional for first experiments; required for production )
- Familiarity with your org’s networking and compliance requirements
Choose how to run Arcade
Pick the hosting model that matches your compliance and ops model:
| Option | When to use | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Arcade Cloud | Quickest path; Arcade manages the platform | Arcade Cloud |
| Cloud marketplace | Arcade-operated platform in your cloud account | Azure, AWS, GCP |
| Self-host with Helm | Full control on your Kubernetes cluster | Helm |
See the hosting options overview for a fuller comparison.
Hosting your server with arcade deploy is a developer workflow. It does not deploy the Arcade platform.
Create administrator access
- Sign up for Arcade (Cloud) or finish your marketplace/Helm install.
- Create a project API key for administrative use.
- Confirm you can open the Dashboard for your environment.
Connect end-user identity
For production gateways, connect your OIDC provider as a User Source (Okta, Entra ID, Auth0, Clerk, Stytch, or similar).
Arcade Auth is fine for internal testing. Use a when end users already live in your identity system.
Create an MCP Gateway
Create a gateway that federates the tools your agents and clients should see:
Tools can come from Arcade’s pre-built catalog, an server you deploy, or a remote MCP server you register — a gateway mixes all three.
Attach your when you configure authentication for production.
To add the gateway in Claude for your organization, an Owner adds the gateway URL as a custom connector and keeps the Detected defaults. See Keep the detected defaults.
Turn on governance
- Contextual Access: control visibility and behavior with hooks. Start with Contextual Access.
- Audit Logs: Arcade captures administrative actions by default. See Audit Logs for the dashboard and SIEM API.