itential-mcp

🔌 Itential - MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides comprehensive tools for connecting LLMs to Itential Platform. Enable AI assistants to manage network automations, orchestrate workflows, monitor platform health, and perform advanced network operations.

🎯 Who This Is For

Platform Engineers

Manage infrastructure, monitor system health, configure devices, and orchestrate network operations through AI-powered automation.

Developers

Build automation workflows, integrate with external systems, manage application lifecycles, and extend platform capabilities.

📒 Key Features

Core Capabilities

• Advanced Tool Selection: Filter and control available tools using flexible tagging system
• Multiple Transport Methods: stdio, SSE, and HTTP transports for different deployment scenarios
• Dynamic Tool Discovery: Automatically discovers and registers tools without code modifications
• Flexible Authentication: Supports both basic authentication and OAuth 2.0 for Itential Platform
• Comprehensive Configuration: CLI parameters, environment variables, or configuration files

Network Automation

• Device Management: Configure, backup, and monitor network devices
• Command Execution: Run commands and templates across device groups
• Compliance Management: Automated compliance checking and reporting
• Golden Configuration: Template-based configuration management

Workflow & Orchestration

• Workflow Execution: Trigger and monitor automation workflows
• Operations Management: Job tracking and lifecycle management
• Lifecycle Manager: CRUD operations for stateful products with state tracking
• Service Integration: Connect with external systems and APIs

Platform Operations

• Health Monitoring: Real-time platform and component health metrics
• Resource Management: Adapter and application lifecycle control
• Gateway Services: External service management and orchestration

🔍 Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher
• Access to an Itential Platform Instance
• For development - uv and make

Tested Python Versions

This project is automatically tested against the following Python versions:

• Python 3.10
• Python 3.11
• Python 3.12
• Python 3.13

🔧 Installation

The itential-mcp application can be installed using either PyPI or it can be
run directly from source.

PyPI Installation

To install it from PyPI, simply use pip:

pip install itential-mcp

Local Development

The repository can also be clone the repository to your local environment to
work with the MCP server. The project uses uv and make so both tools
would need to be installed and available in your environment.

The following commands can be used to get started.

git clone https://github.com/itential/itential-mcp
cd itential-mcp
make build

For development, you can run the server directly using uv:

# Run with stdio transport (default)
uv run itential-mcp run

# Run with SSE transport
uv run itential-mcp run --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

# Run with specific configuration
uv run itential-mcp run --include-tags "system,devices" --exclude-tags "experimental"

Build Container Image

Build and run as a container:

# Build the container image
make container

# Run the container with environment variables
docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_SERVER_TRANSPORT=sse \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_SERVER_HOST=0.0.0.0 \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_SERVER_PORT=8000 \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_HOST=URL \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_CLIENT_ID=CLIENT_ID \
  --env ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_CLIENT_SECRET=CLIENT_SECRET \
  itential-mcp:devel

🚀 Quick Start

1. Install the Server

pip install itential-mcp

2. Configure Platform Connection

Set your Itential Platform credentials:

export ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_HOST="your-platform.example.com"
export ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_USER="your-username"
export ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_PASSWORD="your-password"

3. Start the Server

# Basic stdio transport (default)
itential-mcp run

# Or with SSE transport for web clients
itential-mcp run --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

4. Configure Your MCP Client

Follow the integration guide to connect Claude, Continue.dev, or other MCP clients.

📝 Basic Usage

Start the MCP server with default settings (stdio transport):

itential-mcp run

Start with SSE transport:

itential-mcp run --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

General Options

Option	Description	Default
--config	Path to the config file	none

Server Options

Option	Description	Default
--transport	Transport protocol (stdio, sse, http)	stdio
--host	Host address to listen on	localhost
--port	Port to listen on	8000
--path	The streamable HTTP path to use	/mcp
--log-level	Log level (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL)	INFO
--include-tags	Tags to include registered tools	none
--exclude-tags	Tags to exclude registered tools	experimental,beta

Platform Configuration

Option	Description	Default
--platform-host	Itential Platform hostname	localhost
--platform-port	Platform port (0 = auto-detect)	0
--platform-disable-tls	Disable TLS for platform connection	false
--platform-disable-verify	Disable certificate verification	false
--platform-timeout	Connection timeout	30
--platform-user	Username for authentication	admin
--platform-password	Password for authentication	admin
--platform-client-id	OAuth client ID	none
--platform-client-secret	OAuth client secret	none

Environment Variables

All command line options can also be set using environment variables prefixed with ITENTIAL_MCP_SERVER_. For example:

export ITENTIAL_MCP_SERVER_TRANSPORT=sse
export ITENTIAL_MCP_PLATFORM_HOST=platform.example.com
itential-mcp run  # Will use the environment variables

Configuration file

The server configuration can also be specified using a configuration file. The
configuration file can be used to pass in all the configuration parameters. To
use a configuration file, simply pass in the --config <path> command line
argument where <path> points to the configuration file to load.

The format and values for the configuration file are documented
here

When configuration options are specified in multiple places the following
precedence for determinting the value to be used will be honored from highest
to lowest:

1. Environment variable
2. Command line option
3. Configuration file
4. Default value

🎛️ Tool Selection & Tagging

The Itential MCP server provides powerful tool filtering capabilities through a comprehensive tagging system. This allows you to customize which tools are available based on your specific needs and security requirements.

Tag-Based Filtering

Control tool availability using include and exclude tags:

# Include only system and device management tools
itential-mcp run --include-tags "system,configuration_manager,devices"

# Exclude experimental and beta tools (default behavior)
itential-mcp run --exclude-tags "experimental,beta,lifecycle_manager"

Available Tag Groups

Tag Group	Description	Use Case
system	Platform health and monitoring	Platform administrators
configuration_manager	Device and compliance management	Network engineers
devices	Device-specific operations	NOC teams
operations_manager	Workflow and job management	Automation developers
adapters	Adapter lifecycle management	Integration specialists
applications	Application lifecycle management	Application owners
automation_studio	Command templates and automation	Network operators
gateway_manager	External service management	System integrators
integrations	External system integrations	API developers
lifecycle_manager	Stateful product CRUD operations and state tracking	Product managers
workflow_engine	Workflow execution metrics	Performance analysts

Role-Based Configurations

The following role-based configurations provide tailored tool access based on specific job functions and responsibilities:

Platform SRE:
Use Cases: Platform & application administration, Adapter management, Integration management, Troubleshooting, Platform overall health and functionality

itential-mcp run --include-tags "system,adapters,applications,integrations"

Available Tools: get_health, restart_application, start_application, stop_application, create_integration_model, get_job_metrics, get_task_metrics, restart_adapter, start_adapter, stop_adapter, get_task_metrics_for_app, get_task_metrics_for_task, get_task_metrics_for_workflow

Platform Builder:
Use Cases: Asset development, Asset promotion, Workflow metrics analysis, Resource lifecycle management

itential-mcp run --include-tags "operations_manager,automation_studio,configuration_manager,workflow_engine,lifecycle_manager"

Available Tools: create_resource, get_workflows, describe_command_template, run_command_template, run_command, render_template, create_device_group, get_resources, describe_resource, get_instances, backup_device_configuration, apply_device_configuration, get_compliance_plans, run_compliance_plan, get_adapters, get_applications, get_integration_models, get_job_metrics, get_job_metrics_for_workflow, get_task_metrics, get_task_metrics_for_workflow, get_task_metrics_for_app, get_task_metrics_for_task, describe_instance, run_action

Automation Developer:
Use Cases: Asset development, Asset promotion, External service management

itential-mcp run --include-tags "operations_manager,gateway_manager"

Available Tools: create_resource, get_services, get_gateways, run_service

Platform Operator:
Use Cases: Execute jobs, Run compliance, Consume data

itential-mcp run --include-tags "operations_manager,devices,configuration_manager,automation_studio"

Available Tools: get_workflows, start_workflow, get_jobs, describe_job, get_devices, get_device_configuration, get_device_groups, get_command_templates, run_command_template, describe_compliance_report

📚 Documentation & Integration

Complete Tool Reference

The entire list of available tools can be found in the tools documentation along with detailed tag associations.

Client Integration Guides

• MCP Client Integration - Configure Claude, Continue.dev, and other MCP clients
• Configuration Examples - Complete configuration file reference
• Tagging System - Advanced tagging and filtering guide
• Workflow Execution - Running automation workflows

Example Prompts

• Claude Desktop Prompt - Optimized prompt for Claude integration
• GPT Integration Prompt - Optimized prompt for GPT integration

💡 Available Tools

The entire list of available tools can be found in the tools
file along with the tag groups associated with those tools.

🛠️ Adding new Tools

Adding a new tool is simple:

1. Create a new Python file in the src/itential_mcp/tools/ directory or add a function to an existing file
2. Define an async function with a Context parameter annotation:

from fastmcp import Context

async def my_new_tool(ctx: Context) -> dict:
    """
    Description of what the tool does

    Args:
        ctx (Context): The FastMCP Context object

    Returns:
        dict: The response data

    Raises:
        None
    """
    # Get the platform client
    client = ctx.request_context.lifespan_context.get("client")

    # Make API requests
    res = await client.get("/your/api/path")

    # Return JSON-serializable results
    return res.json()

Tools are automatically discovered and registered when the server starts.

Running Tests

Run the test suite with:

make test

For test coverage information:

make coverage

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Code of Conduct before contributing.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/my-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -am 'Add new feature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/my-feature
5. Submit a pull request

Before submitting:

• Run make premerge to ensure tests pass and code style is correct
• Add documentation for new features
• Add tests for new functionality

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Copyright (c) 2025 Itential, Inc