Expose data to the agent

Turn a Gateway plugin's HTTP routes into MCP tools the operator agent can call, with no separate MCP manifest

Overview

The operator agent calls fleet data and actions as MCP tools. A Gateway plugin's routes become those tools automatically when mounted with autoGenerateMcp: true — no separate MCP manifest to author and keep in sync with the plugin's own routes.

Prerequisites

The Gateway is running
A Gateway plugin already mounted via extraPluginDirs

Auto-generate tools from a plugin

Pass { dir, autoGenerateMcp: true } instead of a plain path to also expose a plugin's HTTP routes as MCP tools:

await startGateway({
  kernel,
  port: 3000,
  extraPluginDirs: [
    { dir: path.join(__dirname, 'plugins/custom-metrics'), autoGenerateMcp: true }
  ],
  mcp: { port: 3100 }
})

Each route becomes a tool named after its id (dots and other non-alphanumeric characters become underscores), with the description, safety hint, and input schema derived from the route's http block. Path, query, and header parameters and the requestBody's top-level properties become the tool's input fields, and the same route handler and live mdkClient connection serve both interfaces. The Gateway starts one in-process MCP server (Streamable HTTP, default port opts.port + 100) covering every auto-generated tool across all mounted plugins.

Write tools by hand instead

A plugin that needs a different tool granularity, richer descriptions, or direct mdkClient calls can still author an mcp-plugin.json by hand and run it with a standalone MCP server.

Next steps

Build the plugin whose routes you want to expose
Enable the operator agent to call the tools this produces
Understand the agent as a stack component