MCP Bearer Auth

[Altricch]

Describe the problem/error/question

When using bearer auth (which has worked for all previous workflows), it now doesnt recognize the access token retrieved from a previous node. Bearer Credentials in expression to reference the node don't find the reference back

What is the error message (if any)?

[ERROR: No path back to node] This credential uses the "Authorization" header. To use a custom header, use a "Custom Auth" credential instead

Custom Auth doesnt exists and bearer auth should still work.

Please share your workflow/screenshots/recording

The relevant part of the workflow:

The generate access token node:

MCP Node:

Bearer Credential Config:

(Select the nodes on your canvas and use the keyboard shortcuts CMD+C/CTRL+C and CMD+V/CTRL+V to copy and paste the workflow.)
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ If you have sensitive data in your workflow (like API keys), please remove it before sharing.

Share the output returned by the last node

Debug info

core

• n8nVersion: 2.19.5
• platform: docker (cloud)
• nodeJsVersion: 24.14.1
• nodeEnv: production
• database: sqlite
• executionMode: regular
• concurrency: 50
• license: enterprise (sandbox)

storage

• success: all
• error: all
• progress: false
• manual: true
• binaryMode: filesystem

pruning

• enabled: true
• maxAge: 720 hours
• maxCount: 25000 executions

client

• userAgent: mozilla/5.0 (macintosh; intel mac os x 10_15_7) applewebkit/605.1.15 (khtml, like gecko) version/26.3.1 safari/605.1.15
• isTouchDevice: false

Generated at: 2026-05-08T08:45:49.829Z

[n8n-assistant]

Hey @Altricch,

Thank you for reaching out! We’ve received your issue and are looking into it. To help us track this internally, we’ve created a Linear ticket with the reference: "GHC-8228".

We’ll keep you updated as we make progress, but if you have any additional details or context to share, feel free to add them here - it’s always helpful!

Thanks for your patience and for bringing this to our attention.

---

For INTERNAL use only: GHC-8228

[DawidMyslak]

Thanks for reporting this @Altricch In this workflow shape, the MCP Client is attached as a tool to the AI Agent, so the Bearer credential expression is evaluated from the tool context rather than as a normal downstream main node. That means $('Get Access Token').item... can fail because there is no direct paired-item path back to that node.

For now, if the access token is a single token for the execution, please use a non-paired reference instead:

{{ $('Get Access Token').first().json.access_token }}

Changing the underlying paired-item resolution for sub-node credentials requires a broader analysis of how it interacts with the execution engine, so we're not rushing a change there. For now we've corrected the misleading "Custom Auth" notice in the Bearer Auth credential to reference "Header Auth" instead.

[n8n-assistant]

Fix got released with n8n@2.22.0