---
title: "MCP, API and custom development"
description: "What to do without a ready-made integration: three routes to your own system, with their permissions, risks and boundaries."
source_name: "Gen8"
source_url: "https://gen8.app/en/integraties/mcp-api-maatwerk/"
site_home: "https://gen8.app/"
source_description: "Managed AI service for SMEs. We set up, connect and manage; you stay in control."
locale: "en"
copyright: "© 2026 Gen8 VOF · Dutch Chamber of Commerce 92978789 · Delft"
published_at: "2026-09-10T00:00:00.000Z"
modified_at: "2026-10-21T18:18:43.015Z"
---

# MCP, API and custom development

## Without a ready-made integration, three routes remain

Most systems in an organization are not in a list of logos. A proprietary order package, an industry system, a database used for twelve years. Three routes exist for those systems: an MCP server, a direct API integration or custom development. They differ in cost, capability and how much maintenance stays with you.

[Book an introduction](<https://gen8.app/en/contact/>)

- Permissions stay in force
- EU hosting
- Visible approval

September 10, 2026

**Route:** MCP  
**Components:** MCP servers, HTTP APIs, custom integrations

## What the integration can do

**MCP.** An MCP server exposes a system's functions as tools a workflow can call. More suppliers now provide their own. Gen8 can discover external MCP servers and use their tools in a workflow. This is the fastest route when the server exists and is well built — and the route where that server's provider determines what is possible.

**API.** If the system has a documented API, we build the calls your workflow needs with the system's required authentication. More work than MCP, but full control over which fields are read and written.

**Custom development.** No API, or a system accessible only through files, a database or a portal. We build the bridge: file exchange, a read connection to the database or another arrangement allowed in your environment.

The right route depends on more than technology. An unmaintained MCP server is a worse choice than a simple API integration you can read yourselves.

## What you can *automate* with this

A few examples of work you can hand over through this integration. We work out what fits your organisation together during scoping.

### A system with its own MCP server

If the supplier provides an MCP server, a workflow can use its tools. First we check who runs it and what it does with your data.

### An integration with your system's API

If your system has a documented API, we build precisely the calls your workflow needs, using your designated fields.

### A system without an API

Only accessible through files, a database or a portal? We build the bridge within what your environment permits.

## Does this work look familiar? Or does your process run on another system?

Tell us which work you want to hand over. We help you think through the integration and route, even if your system is not listed here yet.

[Book an introduction](<https://gen8.app/en/contact/>)

## What access is needed

Every route follows the same principle: the workflow receives the narrowest access needed to do its job. Read only where reading is enough, write only to fields the workflow needs.

An **external MCP server** adds another consideration. A third party defines its tools and may change them without your involvement. What that server does with received data is outside Gen8. Every external MCP server therefore raises the question of who runs it, where and whether that fits your data-processing requirements — a question for your administrator, not a workflow.

Credentials are stored encrypted, never in workflow text. Processing within Gen8 takes place in the EU; the external server or API's provider determines its location.

## Where approval is required

A route determines how a system can be reached, not whether an action may happen without a person. That separate question is answered per action: reading usually needs no intervention, writing starts as a proposal with human approval, and only once an action is proven and reversible can it run automatically with logging.

For a route new to you, we deliberately retain approval longer than may seem strictly necessary. Not because the model is less reliable, but because a new integration reveals real-world edge cases in its first weeks.

## What we can demonstrate

Gen8 has its own tool to discover external MCP servers and make their tools available in a workflow. API and custom routes are built per system — so there is no ready-made connector to display here, and we do not suggest otherwise.

## First check whether this is the right place

This page covers the three routes remaining when there is no ready-made integration. Many systems do have one, making this the wrong page. In six questions, this scan identifies your systems' capability ceiling — native, configured, MCP or custom development — based on the integrations this platform itself has today. If you belong here, it says so plainly.

gen8 · custom routedone

Reach a system without an existing integration

Plan01Three routes considered: MCP server, API or custom development

Action02External MCP server discovered and tools read

Action03Call limited to the fields this workflow needs

Action04Write action prepared, not yet executed

Reflect05Your administrator decides who runs this server and where.

Route works · administrator decides on server, permissions and maintenance

## Frequently asked questions

How do we know which route fits our system?

That is exactly the question for the process conversation. Three things determine the answer: whether the system has an API, whether a maintained MCP server exists and what your administrators permit.

Is an MCP server secure?

That depends on who runs it and where. A vendor's own server differs from one published by an unknown party. Your administrator should weigh that choice, and we explicitly raise the question.

Who maintains the integration afterward?

We agree and document that beforehand. With custom development this is a real cost, not a footnote — an integration nobody maintains eventually breaks.

Can we start without an API?

Often yes. File exchange or a read connection is less elegant, but it works and can be checked.

## Which systems do you use?

Tell us which process you want to connect. We explain which route fits, which permissions are needed and where people keep making decisions.

[Book an introduction](<https://gen8.app/en/contact/>)

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