How to connect an Oracle HCM MCP to Cursor (4 steps)

Oracle HCM's Fusion REST API isn't something you can guess your way through.

It splits an employee across separate Person and Assignment resources, and that structure alone breaks most first-pass integration attempts.

Before you can write a parser, sync, or validation rule, you need to see a real tenant's response, and that means leaving the editor for Oracle's REST API docs, a Postman collection, and per-tenant OAuth credentials.

To help your developers query Oracle HCM data without leaving Cursor, we'll show you how to connect Oracle HCM with Merge Agent Handler's Oracle HCM MCP server.

How it works

Merge Agent Handler connects Cursor to the Oracle HCM API through the Merge CLI.

You install the CLI, authenticate once, and run a single setup command from your project root.

That command writes a ## Merge CLI section to your project's .cursorrules file, which tells Cursor's agent when to call merge search-tools and merge execute-tool to reach Oracle HCM.

Merge will also resolve the per-tenant domain URL and manages Oracle Identity Cloud Service OAuth credentials on your behalf, so you never configure IDCS manually or store instance-specific secrets in your project.

Related: How to use the Oracle HCM MCP in Claude Code

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you'll need the following:

• A Merge Agent Handler account
• Cursor installed
• pipx installed (run pipx --version to confirm, or install via pip install pipx)
• An Oracle HCM account with API access (requires an Oracle Cloud administrator to enable REST API access and provide your instance's base URL and OAuth credentials)

If you want to connect Merge Agent Handler's Oracle HCM MCP with internal or customer-facing agentic products, you can follow the steps in our docs.

1. Install the Merge CLI

Add the Merge CLI to your environment with pipx: pipx install merge-api

Confirm the installation succeeded: merge --version

2. Log in to Merge

Connect the CLI to your Merge Agent Handler account: merge login

This links the CLI to your account so Merge can make authorized requests against Oracle HCM on your behalf.

3. Connect the CLI to Cursor

Run the following from the root of the project where you want to use Merge tools:

merge setup cursor

This writes a ## Merge CLI section to .cursorrules so Cursor knows to use the CLI for third-party services. The command is idempotent, so it's safe to re-run if you need to reset.

Related: The steps for integrating an Oracle HCM MCP with Codex

4. Authenticate Oracle HCM

Open a Cursor chat in your project and try a prompt like: "Fetch one employee's Person and Assignment records and show every field, including any descriptive flexfield segments, so I can model the relationship correctly before writing the sync."

The first time you invoke an Oracle HCM tool, a Magic Link will appear to complete connector authentication.

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Oracle HCM MCP FAQ

In case you have more questions on setting up and using the Oracle HCM MCP in Cursor, we've addressed several more commonly-asked questions below.

What can you do once the Oracle HCM MCP is connected to Cursor?

With Oracle HCM connected, Cursor can:

• Inspect a real Person and Assignment pair before writing a parser: fetch both resources for one employee to see how Oracle splits identity from the work relationship, so your model joins them correctly instead of guessing

• Resolve flexfield segment structure before writing code that reads custom fields: pull a record with descriptive or extensible flexfields to see the actual segment names and value types configured for that tenant

• Check the REST link structure before writing traversal code: fetch a resource to see how Oracle Fusion returns a links array with rel and href for related resources, so your client follows them correctly

• Validate effective-dated query behavior before writing as-of-date logic: run a query with an effective-as-of-date parameter to see how Oracle returns the record valid on that date before you write logic that depends on it

• Resolve lookup and value set codes before writing validation: pull the valid job code, grade, or lookup values so your enums and validation match Oracle's real codes, not assumed labels

• Check pagination behavior on a real query: run a query that returns many records to see how Oracle's limit, offset, and hasMore metadata work before implementing your pagination loop

Why use Merge Agent Handler vs. building directly on the Oracle HCM API?

You can build directly against Oracle HCM's REST API. For a single developer working against one tenant, that's workable: get OAuth credentials from your Oracle Cloud administrator, configure the token endpoint for your IDCS domain, and start making requests against your instance's base URL.

The friction shows up once more than one person needs access, or the work spans more than one tenant.

Oracle HCM is multi-tenant by design: each customer deployment has its own domain URL, its own IDCS instance, and its own OAuth application. There's no single global endpoint, so a self-hosted setup means storing and managing separate credentials and base URLs per tenant, with no built-in way to scope which fields or operations a given agent can reach.

Merge Agent Handler resolves the per-tenant domain and handles IDCS OAuth centrally for every connected Oracle HCM deployment.

You can scope which Oracle HCM operations a given agent is allowed to call, so a tool built to inspect job or position structure for code generation doesn't also reach payroll or talent review endpoints, and every call is logged with the timestamp, tool name, and inputs.

Why connect Oracle HCM to Cursor?

Developers writing Oracle HCM integrations have to understand its data model before the code will work: identity split across Person and Assignment resources, custom data carried in tenant-specific flexfields, and effective-dating applied to nearly every record.

That structure is documented, but reading about it isn't the same as seeing a real response from the tenant your integration will run against.

With the Oracle HCM MCP connected, Cursor can pull real Oracle HCM data directly in the chat panel.

You can fetch a Person and Assignment pair while writing the model that joins them, check a flexfield's segments while writing the type definitions for custom data, or confirm effective-dating behavior while writing as-of-date logic. The data your code depends on and the code itself live in the same session, which cuts the round-trip to Oracle's REST API docs or a separate test script.

Can I use Merge's Oracle HCM MCP with my employees?

Yes, Merge for Workforce is built to help organizations provision, secure, and govern how employees connect AI tools like Cursor to systems like Oracle HCM.

Common patterns include:

• Provisioning and access control via SCIM with identity providers like Okta and Microsoft Entra ID, so IT can manage which tenants and fields an employee's agent can reach by role or team

• DLP and policy enforcement on tool calls, so admins can block queries that would return compensation, talent review, or other sensitive workforce data before results reach the editor session

• User-level audit logging so security and IT teams can review which workforce records were accessed, by which employee identity, and when

Put together, employees can use the Oracle HCM MCP to write integrations grounded in real Person and Assignment structure, build validation tied to actual flexfield segments, confirm effective-dating behavior before shipping code, and more, while IT keeps centralized control over which tenants and fields each agent can reach.