Connect Windsurf to AXL

Windsurf has no dialog for adding a custom remote server, so this one is a config edit rather than a form. It is two lines, then a browser sign-in, and Cascade has tools over your CRM, sites, courses, automations and email.

1 · Add the server

Open Settings → Cascade → MCP Servers and add an axl entry to mcp_config.json with serverUrl set to the endpoint. Clients disagree about that key name; Windsurf wants serverUrl, not url.

{"mcpServers":{"axl":{"serverUrl":"https://app.axl.tech/mcp"}}}

Menu path checked against Windsurf's own documentation. It is somebody else's UI and it moves.

2 · Sign in

Your browser opens on an AXL consent screen. It names the client that asked and shows which account the agent will act as; if you administer more than one, switch there before approving. What the client receives is an ordinary admin access token scoped to that account, which is why the agent inherits your permissions rather than a separate set.

3 · Ask for something

“Draft a landing page for the workshop, don't publish it, and give me the preview link.”

Asking for a preview rather than a publish is the shape most work should take here; publishing is its own call. Where an agent stops, and what it finishes →

Review the school and access request before you approve the connection.

If it does not work

• Nothing happens after saving the file. Windsurf reads mcp_config.json at start-up. Restart it, or use its own refresh action, before assuming the entry is wrong.
• The browser never opened. The client registers itself first, and that step fails quietly if the URL is not exactly the endpoint. Re-check it, then remove and re-add the entry.
• Approval failed with “no school”. The token is scoped to an account and you have not created one yet. Finish that, then connect.

Cascade acts as you, with your permissions, in one account. It writes without publishing (publishing and sending are separate steps you ask for), and 21 sensitive operations are not on its surface at all. What an agent can never do →