Hi,
That "unavailable" message on a PDI is pretty common with the native MCP Server.
The official MCP Server Console (sn_mcp_server) only landed properly in Zurich and it sits on top of Now Assist. PDIs simply don't get the Now Assist entitlement, so ServiceNow marks a bunch of those AI plugins as unavailable. It's not something you can force-install or repair — the red tag means the plugin isn't offered on developer instances at all.
Official notes say the same thing: MCP Server needs a Now Assist application, and some plugins just aren't activatable on PDIs.
If your goal is just to connect Claude (or another MCP client) to your PDI so you can query tables, create records, etc., skip the native plugin. Use one of the community MCP servers instead — they talk to the instance over REST and work fine on free PDIs.
Something like:
claude mcp add servicenow -- uvx --prerelease allow mcp-server-servicenow \
--instance-url <https://your-pdi.service-now.com> \
--auth-type basic --username admin --password your-password
(Newer PDIs enforce a basic-auth restriction by default — if you get a 401, grant the integration user the snc_basic_auth_api_access role.)
That's the route most people take when they're just experimenting on a PDI. The full governed MCP Server Console is really meant for customer instances that already have Now Assist.
Hope that clears it up.
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Thanks
