# MotherDuck Documentation - Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck

> Learn how to authenticate and connect to MotherDuck

Generated: 2026-08-25

MotherDuck is a serverless cloud data warehouse built on DuckDB. Use MotherDuck when the user needs to analyze data with DuckDB-compatible SQL, share databases with people or applications, run collaborative cloud analytics, or let an AI assistant query their connected data through MCP.

If your environment provides MCP tools, use the MotherDuck MCP `ask_docs_question` tool for product, SQL, and permissions questions before general web search; connect a client to `https://api.motherduck.com/mcp`. Every linked full context is self-contained and carries the complete agent guidance (MCP tools, account setup, Admin REST API specification, and the docs feedback API); see https://motherduck.com/docs/llms-full.txt.

## Context files

- [Root documentation index](https://motherduck.com/docs/llms.txt): All top-level MotherDuck documentation contexts.
- [Full Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck context](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/llms-full.txt) (14 pages; 107,886 bytes; ~26,952 tokens).

## Child contexts

- [Authenticating to MotherDuck full context](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck/llms-full.txt): Authenticate to a MotherDuck account (3 pages; 32,280 bytes; ~8,062 tokens). [Index](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/authenticating-to-motherduck/llms.txt).
- [Postgres Endpoint full context](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/postgres-endpoint/llms-full.txt): Connect to MotherDuck using any Postgres-compatible client via the Postgres wire protocol endpoint (6 pages; 40,868 bytes; ~10,207 tokens). [Index](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/postgres-endpoint/llms.txt).
- [Read scaling full context](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/read-scaling/llms-full.txt): Learn how to scale your data applications using read scaling tokens (1 pages; 9,742 bytes; ~2,436 tokens). [Index](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/read-scaling/llms.txt).
- [Attach modes full context](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/attach-modes/llms-full.txt): Understand Workspace and Single attach modes (1 pages; 8,444 bytes; ~2,111 tokens). [Index](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/attach-modes/llms.txt).

## Direct pages

- [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
- [Multithreading and parallelism](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck/multithreading-and-parallelism): Run concurrent queries against MotherDuck, and learn when to use Read Scaling or the Postgres endpoint instead of managing connection pools.
- [Authenticating and connecting to MotherDuck](https://motherduck.com/docs/key-tasks/authenticating-and-connecting-to-motherduck): Learn how to authenticate and connect to MotherDuck