> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.narrative.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# MCP Connect: Invalid Alias

> The alias supplied when connecting an external MCP server is not a valid routing prefix.

**HTTP status:** 400

## Error message

```
alias must match [A-Za-z0-9_]+ (no dashes): my-server
```

The detail names the rule that failed: empty, too long, or containing a character that isn't allowed.

## When this error occurs

`POST /mcp-connections` rejected the `alias` field. An alias must be:

* **1 to 64 characters**, and
* made up only of `A-Z`, `a-z`, `0-9` and `_`.

**Dashes are not allowed.** The alias is a routing prefix: at tool-call time the platform exposes each connected
server's tools as `{alias}-{tool_name}`, so the dash is the separator between the two halves. An alias containing a
dash would make that name ambiguous.

## How to fix

Pick an alias that matches the rule and retry. `huggingface`, `hf`, and `internal_docs` are all fine; `hugging-face` is
not — use `hugging_face` instead.

The alias only has to be unique among the servers one agent run references, and you can change it by deleting the
connection and creating it again.