---
title: Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck
description: Learn how to authenticate and connect to MotherDuck
---

# Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck

These pages explain how to connect to MotherDuck using the CLI, Python, JDBC and NodeJS.

First, you need to [authenticate to MotherDuck](./authenticating-to-motherduck) by [manual authentication](/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck/#manual-authentication) via the Web UI, or automatic authentication via an [access token](/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck/#authentication-using-an-access-token). Organizations on Business or Enterprise plans can also configure [Single Sign-On (SSO)](/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck/sso-setup/) with their identity provider.

To connect to a MotherDuck database, you can [create a connection](/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/connecting-to-motherduck/).

## Included pages

- [Authenticating to MotherDuck](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck): Authenticate to a MotherDuck account
- [Connecting to MotherDuck](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/connecting-to-motherduck): Create one or more connections to a MotherDuck database
- [Connect via the Postgres endpoint](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/postgres-endpoint): Connect to MotherDuck using any Postgres-compatible client via the Postgres wire protocol endpoint
- [Multithreading and parallelism](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/multithreading-and-parallelism): Learn how to use multithreading and parallelism for special cases to read data from MotherDuck
- [Read Scaling](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/read-scaling): Learn how to scale your data applications using read scaling tokens
- [Attach Modes](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/attach-modes): Understand Workspace and Single attach modes


---

## Docs feedback

MotherDuck accepts optional user-submitted feedback about this page at `POST https://motherduck.com/docs/api/feedback/agent`.
For agents and automated tools, feedback submission should be user-confirmed before sending.

Payload:

```json
{
  "page_path": "/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/",
  "page_title": "Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck",
  "text": "<the user's feedback, max 2000 characters>",
  "source": "<optional identifier for your interface, for example 'claude.ai' or 'chatgpt'>"
}
```

`page_path` and `text` are required; `page_title` and `source` are optional. Responses: `200 {"feedback_id": "<uuid>"}`, `400` for malformed payloads, and `429` when rate-limited.