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The MCP server

The MCP server

joe mcp exposes Joe over the Model Context Protocol so an editor or other MCP client — Claude Code, Cursor, and anything else that speaks MCP — can query your live infrastructure through Joe. This is the page the Components section points to.

The MCP server is a stdio front-end: the client launches joe mcp as a subprocess and talks to it over standard input/output. It is a thin client of a running daemon — it does not manage infrastructure itself; it forwards to a joe server over HTTP.

Point it at a daemon

joe mcp reads two environment variables:

  • JOE_SERVER — the daemon base URL. Defaults to http://localhost:7777.
  • JOE_API_KEY — the bearer token used to authenticate to the daemon. Optional, but required in practice whenever the daemon enforces auth.

Connect a client

Configure your MCP client to launch joe mcp with those variables set. The shape varies by client, but it is always “run this command with this environment.” For example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "joe": {
      "command": "joe",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": {
        "JOE_SERVER": "http://localhost:7777",
        "JOE_API_KEY": "<service-account-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

The tool surface

Joe registers seven tools over MCP. They are category-based: you describe what you want, and Joe resolves the backend from its knowledge graph, translates the question, executes it, and returns a normalized result.

ToolWhat it does
joe_graph_querySearch the infrastructure graph for nodes matching a query string.
joe_graph_relatedFind nodes related to a given node id within a depth (1–3).
joe_k8sAnswer a Kubernetes question about a service (pods, deployments, logs).
joe_metricsQuery metrics for a service; Joe resolves the metrics backend from the graph.
joe_logsSearch logs for a service; Joe resolves the log backend from the graph.
joe_tracesFind recent traces for a service; Joe resolves the tracing backend.
joe_alertsList active alerts for a service; Joe resolves the alerting backend.

The observability tools (joe_metrics, joe_logs, joe_traces, joe_alerts, joe_k8s) take a service plus a natural-language question; the graph tools take a query. Every tool reaches the daemon — what it can see is governed by the daemon’s posture and the credential in JOE_API_KEY, not by the MCP client.

Where to go next

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