MCP for DevOps – Sequence Opener and MCP Structure Intro
You may have undoubtedly heard about Anthropic’s MCP (Mannequin Context Protocol) open supply undertaking. When you haven’t, I hope your trip on a distant island with out web entry was pretty!
As a die-hard YouTube Premium fan, I’m inundated with video suggestions with themes like “What’s MCP?” “OMG, This Adjustments Every little thing,” and my favourite, “Goodbye Builders, MCP is Right here to Keep.” Critically? Whereas it’s a implausible undertaking, it isn’t right here to switch us.
Over the subsequent a number of weeks, I’ll delve into these subjects:
MCP—Why Ought to You Care?: It will present a quick overview of MCP from a communication, discovery, and interplay perspective. We’ll then discover what it seems to be like on the wire and the way it capabilities as a consumer/server structure, adopted by varied use circumstances. I gained’t cowl the historical past of MCP or different important info, as numerous glorious sources can be found on YouTube, dev.to, Medium, and elsewhere.
MCP for DevOps: I’ll focus on a choice of use circumstances that work effectively for DevOps, NetOps, and SecOps roles.
MCP How-to: That is the place issues get thrilling. I’ll current a number of demos and walk-throughs for the next use circumstances:
- Cursor with GitHub: Use Cursor as an MCP consumer to programmatically work together with an MCP server that integrates with GitHub for a Cisco DevOps workflow
- Cursor with Argo CD: Use Cursor as an MCP consumer to programmatically work together with an MCP server that employs Argo CD for a Cisco DevOps workflow
- Claude Desktop & DevOps Workflows: We’ll swap issues up by utilizing Claude Desktop as a substitute of Cursor to reveal flexibility on the MCP consumer aspect
On the finish of the collection, I’ll tie all of this collectively to point out how Cursor, with a number of MCP purchasers, can drive adjustments to Ansible playbooks in a GitHub repository, triggering actions within the Argo CD workflow. In the end, we are going to use the Ansible playbook to switch configuration settings on Cisco options akin to Cisco ISE (Id Providers Engine) and different Cisco merchandise.
I hope you be part of me on this journey.
Let’s get began with discussing the MCP structure and why it is best to care about it.
MCP Intro—Why Ought to You Care?
Welcome to the primary put up in our three-part technical collection on Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP), a brand new, centered protocol constructed to assist AI functions and brokers work together with instruments, APIs, recordsdata, and databases constantly and programmatically.
When you’re in DevOps and experimenting with AI-driven automation, MCP deserves your consideration—not as a silver bullet however as a sensible step towards cleaner integration between AI programs and your operational stack. That stated, it’s early days. MCP is new and transferring quick, and whereas it already solves quite a few real-world issues, there are nonetheless corners to shine and edge circumstances it doesn’t but cowl.
What’s MCP, and Why Does It Matter?
As illustrated in Determine 1, Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) is a protocol that gives a uniform method to plug in an AI mannequin into instruments and companies.
Determine 1. MCP with LLMs and Instruments
It’s:
- A light-weight communication protocol designed particularly for AI brokers and functions.
- Constructed to attach these brokers to instruments, APIs, databases, and file programs.
- Structured as a consumer/server structure—easy and predictable.
- Plumbing
It isn’t:
- A messaging protocol for agent-to-agent communication.
- An LLM, database, AI assistant or agent.
- A general-purpose integration platform.
- A substitute to your present APIs or knowledge bus.
MCP’s job is tightly scoped: give an AI agent a clear, standardized method to uncover, request, and invoke capabilities on present tool-based infrastructure. In case your LLM-powered bot must name a REST API, record recordsdata, or question a database—MCP supplies the glue.
MCP issues as a result of it reduces and, in lots of circumstances, removes the toil for AI functions and brokers to seek out, connect with, and leverage exterior instruments and companies akin to APIs, knowledge sources, and different non-AI native software units. For Dev/Web/SecOps employees, it will probably convey fast worth so that you can leverage an AI agent to connect with your present knowledge sources and APIs in order that an operationally-focused agent can extra precisely full duties.
We’ll focus on use circumstances within the subsequent weblog, however think about you have to create a workflow that works with Ansible Playbooks, NetBox, and GitHub and automate configurations towards your infrastructure.
An instance workflow might appear to be this:
- You manually create a Jinja2 template for Ansible and host it on GitHub.
- Collect knowledge out of your NetBox deployment.
- You employ Python + Jinja2 to populate the playbook template with knowledge from NetBox after which invoke Ansible through a Python module, CLI, runner, and so on.
- Ideally, you utilize a CI/CD software to auto-run this workflow.
Quick ahead from the nice ’ole days; you or somebody in your group be taught concerning the energy of AI Brokers and create a collection of AI brokers that may faucet into every software and knowledge supply with out writing any code. They’ll leverage MCP to connect with every useful resource as MCP servers and work together with them natively—no particular script code. No scouring the web for SDKs or some mysterious script somebody recommends that you simply don’t perceive. To me, that is considered one of many value-add use circumstances of MCP.
Overview of MCP – Structure and Core Elements
MCP has a streamlined structure and there aren’t many transferring components.
As illustrated in Determine 2 MCP makes use of a consumer/server structure. Let’s outline what the consumer and server elements do.
Determine 2. MCP Elements
Determine 2 exhibits an MCP host which is an AI software akin to an AI agent, IDE, coding assistant, and so on..
The MCP consumer (MCP-C) is software program that runs on MCP hosts and has one-to-one connections to MCP servers (MCP-S).
The MCP server is software program that represents particular service or software capabilities.
The MCP host makes use of the language-specific MCP SDK for consumer connections (instance: MCP Python SDK) to determine connections to MCP servers. The MCP SDK is used for each client-side and server-side code.
Instance Python MCP consumer code.
Instance Python MCP server code.
Many present MCP purchasers are full functions or AI brokers with the MCP consumer SDK performance natively in-built. You may see an instance record right here: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/purchasers
There are quite a few sources of MCP server lists on the Web. Here’s a record from the MCP undertaking: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/examples. Some MCP consumer suppliers, akin to Cursor, have their very own record of servers: https://cursor.listing/.
Determine 2 exhibits that every MCP-C occasion has a one-to-one connection to every MCP-S occasion. Within the determine, there are two MCP purchasers working on the MCP host, an AI agent on this instance. The primary MCP consumer is connecting to a locally-hosted MCP server that gives native machine file system entry. The second MCP consumer is connecting to a remotely hosted MCP server that’s offering entry to a distant file system.
MCP purchasers change messages with MCP servers utilizing JSON-RPC 2.0 (because the wire format). For native knowledge sources, MCP makes use of JSON-RPC over stdio (Normal Enter/Output) because the transport. Determine 3., illustrates how an MCP-C connects to an area MCP-S for file or DB entry utilizing stdio. The MCP-S sends JSON-RPC messages to its normal output / stdout and reads from the usual enter / stdin.
Determine 3. JSON-RPC over stdio
Right here is an instance of working an MCP filesystem server domestically in stdio mode and limiting entry to a really particular listing:
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /Customers/shmcfarl/code/mcp-testing Safe MCP Filesystem Server working on stdio Allowed directories: [ '/Users/shmcfarl/code/mcp-testing' ]
Utilizing a fantastic check software such because the MCP Inspector you possibly can pair an area consumer (MCP Inspector) together with your domestically working stdio or HTTP+SSE server:
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /Customers/shmcfarl/code/mcp-testing
Beginning MCP inspector...
Proxy server listening on port 3000
MCP Inspector is up and working at http://localhost:5173
Question parameters: {
transportType: 'stdio',
command: 'npx',
args: '-y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem -y /Customers/shmcfarl/code/mcp-testing',
. . . [Output removed for clarity]
Spawned stdio transport
Related MCP consumer to backing server transport
Created internet app transport
Created internet app transport
Arrange MCP proxy
Obtained message for sessionId 697bd02d-5d67-4dfc-85b9-6a12d6a99f45
Obtained message for sessionId 697bd02d-5d67-4dfc-85b9-6a12d6a99f45
Obtained message for sessionId 697bd02d-5d67-4dfc-85b9-6a12d6a99f45
Obtained message for sessionId 697bd02d-5d67-4dfc-85b9-6a12d6a99f45MCP helps HTTP+SSE (Server-Despatched Occasions) to ship structured requests from service backends utilizing MCP servers to MCP purchasers for native or distant connections. The 2025-03-26 specification adjustments states that MCP is transferring to a extra versatile Streamable HTTP transport. Nevertheless, HTTP+SSE transport can nonetheless be used for backward compatibility. This retains it clear, traceable, and tool-agnostic. Notice: As of the time of scripting this weblog, the brand new Streaming HTTP assist just isn’t accomplished in every SDK.
Determine 4 illustrates the connection circulate for HTTP+SSE situations. Within the determine, HTTP POST is used for MCP-C -to- MCP-S messages. HTTP+SSE is used for MCP-S -to- MCP-C messages.
Determine 4. MCP-C -to- MCP-S communication utilizing HTTP+SSE
You may undergo the MCP quickstart server and consumer guides to learn to setup your individual climate consumer/server combo: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/server. Utilizing the same setup, you possibly can see some HTTP messages for stuff like a instruments record name:
POST /messages/?session_id=6ccde3779adf43cc9d3f5f661508310b HTTP/1.1
Host: 0.0.0.0:8080
Settle for: */*
Settle for-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: keep-alive
Consumer-Agent: python-httpx/0.28.1
Content material-Size: 46
Content material-Sort: software/json
{"technique":"instruments/record","jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2}
HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:14:51 GMT
server: uvicorn
content-length: 8
Accepted
And a software name to get the climate forecast:
POST /messages/?session_id=6ccde3779adf43cc9d3f5f661508310b HTTP/1.1
Host: 0.0.0.0:8080
Settle for: */*
Settle for-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: keep-alive
Consumer-Agent: python-httpx/0.28.1
Content material-Size: 134
Content material-Sort: software/json
{"technique":"instruments/name","params":{"title":"get_forecast","arguments":{"latitude":39.7392,"longitude":-104.9903}},"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":3}
HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted
date: Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:14:54 GMT
server: uvicorn
content-length: 8
Accepted
And a response for the climate forecast immediate I entered for Denver, CO:
occasion: message
knowledge: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":3,"end result":{"content material":[{"type":"text","text":"nThis Afternoon:nTemperature: 74..FnWind: 12 mph WnForecast: Partly sunny. High near 74, with temperatures falling to around 72 in the afternoon. West wind around 12 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.nn---nnTonight:nTemperature: 42..FnWind: 5 to 10 mph WSWnForecast: Partly cloudy, with a low around 42. West southwest wind 5 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.nn---nnWednesday:nTemperature: 71..FnWind: 5 to 15 mph WnForecast: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. West wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.nn---nnWednesday Night:nTemperature: 40..FnWind: 2 to 14 mph WNWnForecast: Mostly clear, with a low around 40. West northwest wind 2 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph.nn---nnThursday:nTemperature: 68..FnWind: 2 to 8 mph ESEnForecast: Sunny, with a high near 68. East southeast wind 2 to 8 mph, with gusts as high as 16 mph.n"}],"isError":false}}Because the specification change to Streamable HTTP could be very latest and never absolutely applied as of the writing of this weblog, I’ll forgo doing a granular rationalization of that connection sequence. I beneficial that you simply learn concerning the proposed Streamable HTTP implementation right here: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-03-26/primary/transports#streamable-http.
Discovery
When an agent must work together with a software or service, MCP supplies a useful resource discovery mechanism that lets MCP purchasers uncover out there sources. The MCP consumer can use direct sources or useful resource templates. You may learn extra concerning the useful resource discovery choices at https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/ideas/sources. However, the vital factor to know is that the aim of useful resource discovery is to seek out out the next info:
- Supported capabilities and actions
- Protocol variations
- Customized metadata
Determine 5 exhibits the MCP-C to MCP-S request/response circulate for the capabilities discovery.
Determine 5. MCP Discovery Circulation
Whereas there isn’t a MCP server registry that MCP purchasers can search to dynamically uncover all out there MCP servers and their capabilities, there are MCP server directories as was famous early within the doc. There may be an ever-growing variety of MCP directories and in lots of circumstances, all of them have the identical or comparable record of MCP servers. A couple of of the numerous websites embrace:
MCP Useful resource Discovery – Instance
Let’s take a look at an instance of useful resource discovery utilizing direct sources.
I’ve the SQLite MCP Server working on my native machine. I’m utilizing Claude Desktop as my AI software with the MCP consumer performance configured to make use of the SQLite MCP server. Here’s a snippet from my claude_desktop_config.json file:
"mcpServers": {
"sqlite": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["mcp-server-sqlite", "--db-path", "/Users/shmcfarl/code/mcp-testing/sqlite/test.db"]
},After I use Claude Desktop to software name SQLite and ask for a listing of server sources, you possibly can see the message change from the MCP consumer to MCP server.
2025-04-09T18:08:37.964Z [sqlite] [info] Message from consumer: {"technique":"sources/record","params":{},"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":44}
2025-04-09T18:08:37.965Z [sqlite] [info] Message from server: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":44,"end result":{"sources":[{"uri":"memo://insights","name":"Business Insights Memo","description":"A living document of discovered business insights","mimeType":"text/plain"}]}}
Per the MCP specification you possibly can see the strategy utilized by the MCP consumer is sources/record and the MCP server responds utilizing the direct sources format:
{
uri: string; // Distinctive identifier for the useful resource
title: string; // Human-readable title
description?: string; // Non-compulsory description
mimeType?: string; // Non-compulsory MIME kind
}Conclusion
MCP is off to a powerful begin, particularly for DevOps groups experimenting with AI-driven automation.
On the identical time, it’s nonetheless a younger protocol. MCP offers you a clear basis should you’re constructing AI-enabled workflows that have to work together with infrastructure and instruments safely—however you’ll nonetheless have to assess match to your particular use case.
There may be much more introductory content material that I may cowl, however I feel this lays a basis for the remainder of the weblog collection. For the rest of the blogs it will be important so that you can know:
MCP is right for:
- Brokers want to connect with a number of knowledge sources and companies in an ordinary approach
- It abstracts away the per-integration code complexity – simply use the MCP SDK
- You want it for a low toil platform or with IDE integrations
What doesn’t MCP do (a minimum of in the present day)?
- MCP just isn’t an agent-to-agent framework
- MCP just isn’t used for the creation, deployment, lifecycle administration, and safety of brokers or instruments
- MCP just isn’t an LLM
- MCP just isn’t a knowledge supply
- MCP doesn’t dynamically uncover instruments and companies the MCP server will signify
We additionally discovered how MCP purchasers and servers work together with each other and over which forms of protocol and messaging codecs.
Let’s cease there and decide again up within the subsequent weblog on MCP for DevOps: Use Instances
Want to see it in motion? Watch the total MCP for DevOps: Structure & Elements video walkthrough right here: https://youtu.be/Qdms0EHwhOw
Subsequent within the collection
MCP for DevOps: Use Instances
✅ AI Brokers Triggering DevOps Instruments Use MCP to work together with present DevOps scripts, APIs, or companies in an ordinary format an AI agent can eat.
✅ Infrastructure-Conscious LLMs Let your AI apps ask structured questions like “What kubernetes companies are working in namespace default?” or “Create a brand new database desk”—with stay solutions from programs through MCP servers.
✅ Safe Instrument Invocation through AI expose choose CLI instruments or automation workflows by means of an MCP server interface, permitting AI brokers to work together with them below managed circumstances akin to utilizing a Docker scout MCP to scan photographs.
See you on the subsequent put up!
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