We’ve been setting up the Discourse MCP server to connect our Discourse instance to Claude Desktop via config files. When using a single-use API key with granular access controls, the MCP server throws a 403 Forbidden error because it can’t read about.json. Snippet from the Console Logs [2026-03-1…

it seems reasonable to include access to about.json, I’ve opened a PR and will run this by the team DEV: allow granular api keys access to about.json (#38948) main ← dev-about-api-scope opened 01:5…

[immagine] aangi: The API username or key is invalid Also, is this a misleading error we can improve?

Hi Michael, it does seem like a misleading error. However, because we cannot change the scope of the user once its been created, it is possible that in case of granular access, the API username is being rendered invalid because there is no about.json file.

Utente API con accesso granulare non può leggere about.json | Discourse MCP

Supporto

awesomerobot (Kris) 28 Marzo 2026, 2:00pm 3

sembra ragionevole includere l’accesso a about.json, ho aperto una PR e ne parlerò con il team

2 Mi Piace

Argomento		Risposte	Visualizzazioni
User API keys specification Integrations rest-api , reference	70	35122	Settembre 22, 2025
Allow API use by regular users, not just admins Dev rest-api	7	1296	Aprile 29, 2023
Access via Discourse API, key and/or user rejected Dev rest-api	2	850	Dicembre 1, 2023
403 error when connecting Zapier to Discourse Support	14	912	Ottobre 25, 2020
Get an API key's scopes and user level via the API Dev rest-api	0	597	Novembre 16, 2023

Utente API con accesso granulare non può leggere about.json | Discourse MCP

Argomenti correlati