Skip to content

Intuit QuickBooks connector start-auth skips OAuth — redirects straight to step=success without contacting Intuit #334

Description

@jsredmond

MCP server URL or name

https://ai-inc.quickbooks.intuit.com/v1/mcp

How are you connecting to this server?

From browsing the MCP server directory

Where does the issue occur?

When pressing the Connect button

When did you last reproduce this?

2026-05-21 11:15 AM EDT

Browser and OS

Chrome and Safari on macOS (reproduced in both)

Describe the issue

The Intuit QuickBooks connector installs and shows as "connected" (installState: "connected", isAuthless: true), but the Intuit OAuth login is never triggered. Clicking "Connect" completes in ~1.5 seconds without ever redirecting to accounts.intuit.com or any Intuit OAuth endpoint.

HAR capture confirms the full auth flow:

  1. POST /mcp/logout/acea7db7-... → 200 (disconnect)
  2. GET /mcp/start-auth/acea7db7-...?redirect_url=...&open_in_browser=1 → 307
  3. Location header redirects to: /customize/connectors?&server=acea7db7-...&step=success
  4. Browser loads success page → 200

Zero requests to any Intuit domain in the entire HAR (201 requests captured). The start-auth endpoint short-circuits directly to step=success without initiating OAuth.

Every tool call requiring QBO account data (company-info, qbo_contact_search_customer, etc.) then returns "Authentication failed."

Error details

All tool calls return: "Authentication failed. Offer to help the user reconnect if able."

No error ID (ofid_*) is shown — the in-chat UI just displays "Authentication required to use this tool" with a Connect button that loops back to the same broken flow.

suggest_connectors API returns: installState: "connected", isAuthless: true

Expected behavior

start-auth should redirect the browser to Intuit's OAuth authorization endpoint (accounts.intuit.com or oauth.platform.intuit.com) where the user signs into their QBO account and grants Claude access. After authorization, Intuit redirects back to Claude with an auth code, which Claude exchanges for an access token. This entire OAuth flow is being skipped.

Intuit's own docs confirm this: "Find QuickBooks and click Connect. If you have an Intuit Account, sign in with your account when prompted." (https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/accounting-bookkeeping/use-quickbooks-connector-claude/L3YBlo6Ht_US_en_US)

Additional context

Root cause hypothesis: The connector is registered with isAuthless: true, which causes Claude's start-auth endpoint to short-circuit the OAuth flow entirely. The connector is designed to work without a QBO account (for CSV uploads), but there is no mechanism to trigger Intuit OAuth for users who DO have a QBO account and want live data access.

Tested: disconnect/reconnect multiple times, Chrome and Safari, cleared cookies. Active QBO subscription with admin access confirmed. HAR file available on request (scrubbed for session cookies).

Related issues: #207, #126, #316

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions