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Lab 1 - Enable Webex MCP in Control Hub

Time: 5-25 min

Allow the official Webex Meetings and Messaging Agentic Apps, choose their tools, then generate tokens and start their preconfigured VS Code connections.

Section 1 - Enable the Agentic Apps

In the browser inside the lab desktop, sign in at admin.webex.com with the Control Hub administrator email and password in Session_Info.txt. The Webex App user may have different credentials. If a cookie notice appears, choose your preferred option and continue; the screenshots may not show that notice.

Enable the Webex Meeting app

  1. Sign in to admin.webex.com with the lab administrator account.
  2. Open Apps → Agentic Apps → Webex.
  3. Locate the Webex Meeting agentic app.
  4. Open the app's General settings, select Allowed for all users, and click Save at the bottom right of the page.
  5. Select the Tools tab.
  6. Enable all Webex Meeting tools by toggling Allow tool on for each one, then click Save.

Leave Allow signature change at its existing setting. This lab only asks you to change Allow tool; it does not use the signature-change control.

Enable the Webex Messaging app

  1. Go back to Apps → Agentic Apps → Webex and open the Webex Messaging agentic app.
  2. Open General settings, select Allowed for all users, and click Save.

  3. Select the Tools tab and enable only the following tools, then click Save:

    • Create Webex Message
    • Get Webex Messages
    • Create Webex Space
    • Get Webex Space
    • Add Webex Membership
    • Get Webex Membership
    • Search Webex Spaces
    • Create Webex Thread Reply
    • Get Webex Thread

  4. (Optional) Click Review on any enabled tool to inspect its input schema, output schema, and annotations. This helps you understand what data the agent will send and receive when it invokes the tool later in the lab.

Tool policy summary

App Policy
Webex Meeting All 8 tools enabled
Webex Messaging 9 of 26 tools enabled (see list above)

Why not all Messaging tools?

The Messaging server has 26 tools. We enable only what the lab exercises use. Webhooks, file operations, and delete/update actions are not needed and stay disabled.

This is the single strongest control you have: a tool that is not enabled here cannot be invoked, no matter what a prompt or skill file asks for.

Section 2 - Generate tokens and start the prepared MCP servers

Control Hub decides which apps and tools your organization allows. The tokens in this section let your lab account authenticate to those allowed servers. You need one token for Meetings and another for Messaging; allowing an app in Control Hub does not sign your VS Code client in automatically.

The lab already provides .vscode/mcp.json in LAB-11161. You will inspect and start its server entries, not create the file.

Generate the two Agentic App tokens

  1. In the pod browser, open developer.webex.com and sign in with the Webex user from Session_Info.txt.
  2. Click your avatar (top right) → Webex Agentic App token → Generate now.
  3. Select Webex Meeting MCP server, name the token (for example Lab Meeting Token), and select Create token. Copy it when shown.
  4. Return to Generate now, select Webex Messaging MCP server, name it (for example Lab Messaging Token), and create and copy that token. Keep each token associated with its server.

Start each server and enter its token

  1. Open VS Code with LAB-11161 shown in Explorer. Press Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Command Palette, type MCP: List Servers, and select that command.
  2. Select webex-meeting, then Start Server if it is not running. When VS Code opens the hidden Webex Meeting Agentic App token input, paste the Meeting token without Bearer and press Enter.
  3. Run MCP: List Servers again. Select webex-messaging → Start Server, then enter the Messaging token in its own hidden prompt.
  4. For each server, select Show Output from its server menu (or open View → Output and choose MCP: webex-meeting or MCP: webex-messaging in the Output dropdown). Look for Connection state: Running and discovered tools. The Meeting server should show 8 tools and Messaging should show 9 with this lab's Control Hub policy.

Meetings MCP server output showing Running and eight discovered tools

Messaging MCP server output showing Running and nine discovered tools

Open Agent mode and inspect the tools

  1. Open the Chat panel on the right side of VS Code. At the bottom of the chat input, select Agent if another mode is shown, choose GPT-6 Luna (lab) as the model, and confirm Local appears below the input. Agent mode is the mode that can choose and call MCP tools. The Local session is needed for this pod's interactive token prompts.
  2. Select the slider icon beside the model name. Its tooltip is Configure Tools. Confirm tools from webex-meeting and webex-messaging are enabled. Keep tool approvals on; review the target and inputs before approving a write action.

Configure Tools button beside Agent and the lab model

Keep tokens in the hidden prompts

Tokens grant access to Webex on your behalf. Enter them only in the matching hidden VS Code prompts. Never paste them into Copilot Chat, Session_Info.txt, a skill file, a screenshot, or a committed file. Do not assume a file or clipboard is erased when you leave the pod. If a server was already running, you do not need to enter its token again.

Two server transports

The official servers are hosted by Cisco and appear as type: "http" URLs in the prepared .vscode/mcp.json. In Lab 4, VS Code starts a local quality server over stdio. See MCP Transports for the difference.

Checkpoint

You are ready for Lab 2 when:

  • [x] Both official servers are allowed for your lab account
  • [x] All Webex Meeting tools are enabled
  • [x] The 9 required Webex Messaging tools are enabled
  • [x] You generated separate MCP tokens for the Meeting and Messaging servers
  • [x] Both servers are running in VS Code and their tools are enabled in Copilot Chat
  • [x] You can explain which organization policy controls the tools exposed to the client

Troubleshooting

Problem Solution
Agentic Apps is missing Verify your administrator role and organization assignment
App is visible but tools are absent Check capability-level tool settings and refresh the client
Authorization fails Confirm you are in the allowed population and reauthorize
A tool disappeared after an update Review schema changes and reauthorize the server/tool baseline
Server fails to start in VS Code Run MCP: List Servers → select the server → Show Output; confirm its token was entered in the hidden prompt. Ask a proctor if the prepared workspace is not open