Eraser is where engineering teams write design docs and draw architecture with diagram-as-code: sequence diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, cloud-architecture diagrams, and flowcharts kept next to the prose that explains them. Connecting Eraser to clariBI turns that workspace into something you can count: how many files and diagrams exist, what type they are, and when they last changed.
Why connect Eraser
Design docs accumulate fast on an engineering team, so questions about how many architecture diagrams a service has or which docs went stale mean opening folders by hand.
With Eraser connected, you can ask "How many sequence diagrams do we have per service?", "Which design docs have not changed since last quarter?", or "Search every file mentioning the payments rewrite" and the AI engine reads it live.
How the connection works
clariBI talks to Eraser through its hosted MCP server at https://app.eraser.io/api/mcp. Authentication uses an OAuth flow that clariBI registers itself for (no developer console setup on your side). Tokens stay encrypted server-side and never leave clariBI in clear form.
sequenceDiagram
actor U as You
participant C as clariBI
participant V as Eraser
U->>C: Click Authorize with Eraser
C->>V: Open OAuth authorization
V-->>U: Grant read access?
U->>V: Approve
V-->>C: Authorization code
C->>V: Exchange code for tokens
V-->>C: Access + refresh tokens
C->>C: Encrypt and store credentials
C-->>U: Connection ready
Available tools
clariBI exposes the read-only Eraser tools that the vendor's MCP server publishes at connection time. Write operations (create, update, delete, send, refund) are filtered out by a name-pattern blocklist before any tool reaches the analysis engine, so connecting Eraser cannot modify data on the vendor side.
The exact tool inventory depends on the Eraser features your account has access to. After connecting, try a few natural-language questions to see what Eraser data clariBI can pull.
Data flow during analysis
When you ask a question that maps to Eraser, the AI engine routes to the right tool, reads the result, and pairs the answer with a chart you can pin to a dashboard.
sequenceDiagram
actor U as You
participant C as clariBI
participant AI as AI engine
participant V as Eraser
U->>C: Ask a question about design-doc and diagram-as-code inventory data
C->>AI: Plan the analysis
AI->>V: Call the right tool
V-->>AI: Tool result
AI->>AI: Summarize and chart
C-->>U: Answer plus visual
Setting up the connection
- Open Data Sources in the clariBI sidebar.
- Click Add data source.
- Open the MCP Servers tab.
- Click the Eraser card.
- Click Authorize with Eraser.
- Sign in to Eraser in the popup window and grant the requested read scopes.
- Back in clariBI, give your data source a name.
- Click Finish.
Permissions and data access
clariBI connects through Eraser's OAuth flow and inherits the connected user's team and workspace access. The catalog exposes read tools only (getting a resource, listing files, diagrams, folders, and presets, full-text search, and exporting a diagram to an image); clariBI never generates, creates, edits, or deletes a diagram or file. Disconnect anytime from Settings → Integrations in clariBI.
Troubleshooting
| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "No files returned" | The active team is not the one holding the files, or the connected user has no access to that team. | Confirm the team in Eraser, and note that the workspace search and listing run against the team the connection selected. |
| "Search misses a known diagram" | Full-text search matches document and diagram text, so a diagram defined only by shapes with little label text can be hard to find. | Search by the file or folder name, or list the folder directly instead of relying on free-text search. |