Argo CD MCP Server

An implementation of Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Argo CD, enabling AI assistants to interact with your Argo CD applications through natural language. This server allows for seamless integration with Visual Studio Code and other MCP clients through stdio and HTTP stream transport protocols.

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Features

• Transport Protocols: Supports both stdio and HTTP stream transport modes for flexible integration with different clients
• Complete Argo CD API Integration: Provides comprehensive access to Argo CD resources and operations
• AI Assistant Ready: Pre-configured tools for AI assistants to interact with Argo CD in natural language

Available Tools

The server provides the following ArgoCD management tools:

Cluster Management

• list_clusters: List all clusters registered with ArgoCD

Application Management

• list_applications: List and filter all applications
• get_application: Get detailed information about a specific application
• create_application: Create a new application
• update_application: Update an existing application
• delete_application: Delete an application
• sync_application: Trigger a sync operation on an application

Resource Management

• get_application_resource_tree: Get the resource tree for a specific application
• get_application_managed_resources: Get managed resources for a specific application
• get_application_workload_logs: Get logs for application workloads (Pods, Deployments, etc.)
• get_resource_events: Get events for resources managed by an application
• get_resource_actions: Get available actions for resources
• run_resource_action: Run an action on a resource

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher recommended)
• pnpm package manager (for development)
• Argo CD instance with API access
• Argo CD API token (see the docs for instructions)

Usage with Cursor

1. Follow the Cursor documentation for MCP support, and create a .cursor/mcp.json file in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "argocd-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "argocd-mcp@latest",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "ARGOCD_BASE_URL": "<argocd_url>",
        "ARGOCD_API_TOKEN": "<argocd_token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Start a conversation with Agent mode to use the MCP.

Usage with VSCode

1. Follow the Use MCP servers in VS Code documentation, and create a .vscode/mcp.json file in your project:

{
  "servers": {
    "argocd-mcp-stdio": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "argocd-mcp@latest",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "ARGOCD_BASE_URL": "<argocd_url>",
        "ARGOCD_API_TOKEN": "<argocd_token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Start a conversation with an AI assistant in VS Code that supports MCP.

Usage with Claude Desktop

1. Follow the MCP in Claude Desktop documentation, and create a claude_desktop_config.json configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "argocd-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "argocd-mcp@latest",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "ARGOCD_BASE_URL": "<argocd_url>",
        "ARGOCD_API_TOKEN": "<argocd_token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Configure Claude Desktop to use this configuration file in settings.

Self-signed Certificates

If your Argo CD instance uses self-signed certificates or certificates from a private Certificate Authority (CA), you may need to add the following environment variable to your configuration:

"NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED": "0"

This disables TLS certificate validation for Node.js when connecting to Argo CD instances using self-signed certificates or certificates from private CAs that aren't trusted by your system's certificate store.

Warning: Disabling SSL verification reduces security. Use this setting only in development environments or when you understand the security implications.

Providing ArgoCD Credentials

The server connects to ArgoCD using a base URL and an API token.

API token — header / env var only (mandatory)

The ArgoCD API token is a secret and is only ever read from the transport layer, never from a tool-call argument:

• HTTP headers (HTTP transport only): x-argocd-api-token.
• Environment variables: ARGOCD_API_TOKEN (all transports).

This is the default token. It is mandatory unless a token registry is configured: on the HTTP transport, a connection that supplies no token (neither header nor env var) is rejected with 400 Bad Request, but when a registry is configured a tokenless connection is allowed because each call resolves its own registry token. Keeping the token out of tool arguments ensures it never enters prompts, model context, or tool-call logs.

Base URL — header / env var, or per-call argument

The base URL may be supplied at the session level (resolved once when the server starts or when an HTTP client connects):

• HTTP headers (HTTP transport only): x-argocd-base-url.
• Environment variables: ARGOCD_BASE_URL (all transports).

In addition, every tool accepts an optional argocdBaseUrl argument:

• If a session default base URL exists, argocdBaseUrl is optional and overrides the default for that single call.
• If no session default base URL is configured (header and env var both absent), argocdBaseUrl is required; a call without it returns an error.

Token registry — per-base-URL tokens (multi-instance)

To target multiple ArgoCD instances, each with its own token, configure a token registry. Because the tokens are secrets, the registry is read from a JSON file, not an environment variable — point ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH at the file (e.g. a mounted Kubernetes secret). This keeps the tokens out of the process environment, crash dumps, and child-process inheritance.

ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH=/app/argocd-mcp/token-registry.json

The file contains a JSON array mapping a base URL to the token that should be used for it:

[
  { "baseUrl": "https://argo-a.example.com", "token": "<token-a>" },
  { "baseUrl": "https://argo-b.example.com", "token": "<token-b>" }
]

Secure the file. Restrict it to the server's user (e.g. chmod 400) and prefer a secret-management mechanism (Kubernetes secret volume, Vault agent, etc.) over a plaintext file on disk.

Local development. The make run / make dev targets run without a registry by default; pass ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH=/path/to/tokens.json to use one. Do not place the file under dist/ — tsup runs with clean: true and wipes that directory on every build. See Running locally.

With a registry configured, a caller targets an instance by passing only the (non-secret) argocdBaseUrl argument; the server pairs it with the registered token. The token never appears in the tool-call payload.

Two kinds of token

The server resolves calls using one of two distinct tokens. Keeping them straight is what makes the security model work:

	Default token	Registry token
Source	x-argocd-api-token header / ARGOCD_API_TOKEN env var (the session credential)	A token entry in the ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH JSON file, keyed by baseUrl
Scope	The default base URL only (x-argocd-base-url / ARGOCD_BASE_URL)	The specific base URL its entry is keyed to
Used for	A call that targets the default base URL	A call that targets any base URL present in the registry (including the default, as a fallback)
Never used for	Any base URL other than the default — it is never sent to a different host	Any base URL not registered

The cardinal rule: the default token is bound to the default base URL; every other host's token must come from the registry. A registry token is bound to exactly the host it is registered under.

Resolution order

For a given call, the resolved base URL is the argocdBaseUrl argument if supplied, otherwise the session default. The token is then chosen by:

1. Call targets the default base URL → use the default token. If no default token was supplied (a tokenless session), fall back to the registry token for that base URL, if one exists.
2. Call targets any other base URL → use the registry token for that base URL only. The default token is never used here — it is not sent to a host other than the default one.
3. If neither applies (no token can be resolved for the requested base URL), the call returns a "Missing required ArgoCD API token" error and no request is made to that host.

Why the default token is bound to the default base URL. The argocdBaseUrl argument comes from the tool call, so a caller (or a prompt-injected model) could point it at an arbitrary host. If the default token were paired with any supplied base URL, that token would be sent — as an Authorization: Bearer header — to the attacker's host. Restricting the default token to the default base URL, and requiring an explicit registry entry for every other host, prevents this token exfiltration. To target additional instances you must register their tokens (and thus their hostnames) up front.

Base URLs are normalized for lookup (lowercased host, trailing slashes ignored), so minor formatting differences still match. When a registry is configured, the HTTP transport no longer requires x-argocd-api-token at connection time — a tokenless connection is allowed because the per-call base URL resolves its own token. If ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH is set but the file is missing, unreadable, or malformed, the server fails closed: it throws at startup rather than silently falling back to its default credential, so a misconfigured registry can never cause calls to be routed with the wrong token.

For example, a tools/call request overriding only the base URL:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "list_applications",
    "arguments": {
      "argocdBaseUrl": "https://argocd.other-cluster.example.com"
    }
  }
}

Overriding the base URL to a different instance requires a registry token. The default token (x-argocd-api-token / ARGOCD_API_TOKEN) is bound to the default base URL only and is never sent to a different host. Overriding argocdBaseUrl to point at the default instance (same host, formatting aside) reuses the default token; pointing it at any other instance requires a registry token for that instance, otherwise the call fails with "Missing required ArgoCD API token" and no request is sent. This is intentional — see why the default token is bound to the default base URL above.

Read Only Mode

If you want to run the MCP Server in a ReadOnly mode to avoid resource or application modification, you should set the environment variable:

"MCP_READ_ONLY": "true"

This will disable the following tools:

• create_application
• update_application
• delete_application
• sync_application
• run_resource_action

By default, all the tools will be available.

Stateless Mode

By default, the HTTP transport assigns a session ID to each client connection and keeps an in-memory map of active sessions. This works well for single-instance deployments but causes 400 errors when multiple replicas are running without sticky sessions, because a request routed to a different pod will not find the session that was created on the original pod.

To run without session affinity requirements, start the server with the --stateless flag:

node dist/index.js http --stateless

Or with Docker:

docker run -e ARGOCD_BASE_URL=<argocd_url> -e ARGOCD_API_TOKEN=<argocd_token> \
  argoprojlabs/mcp-for-argocd http --stateless

In stateless mode:

• No Mcp-Session-Id is returned or required — any replica can handle any request
• ArgoCD credentials must be supplied on every request via environment variables or x-argocd-base-url / x-argocd-api-token headers (the base URL may also be overridden per call via the argocdBaseUrl tool argument; the API token is always header/env only)
• GET /mcp and DELETE /mcp return 405 Method Not Allowed (session-level SSE and termination are not supported)

This mode is recommended for Kubernetes deployments with Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) where network-level sticky sessions are not available.

For Development

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/argoproj-labs/mcp-for-argocd.git
cd mcp-for-argocd

2. Install project dependencies:

pnpm install

3. Start the development server with hot reloading enabled:

pnpm run dev

Once the server is running, you can utilize the MCP server within Visual Studio Code or other MCP client.

Running locally

The Makefile provides targets for running the server over the HTTP transport:

make run    # build, then run the HTTP server (production-style)
make dev    # run from source with hot reloading (tsx watch)

By default neither target sets any credentials — the server starts with no default base URL or token, so callers must supply them per request (x-argocd-base-url / x-argocd-api-token headers, or the argocdBaseUrl tool argument once a registry is configured). Override the port the same way:

make run PORT=4000

To configure credentials, export the relevant environment variable on the command line. There are three (all optional):

Variable	Purpose
ARGOCD_BASE_URL	Default ArgoCD instance URL used when a call doesn't override it.
ARGOCD_API_TOKEN	Static API token for the default base URL.
ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH	Path to a JSON token registry mapping base URLs to tokens (for targeting multiple instances).

# Single instance with a static base URL + token:
make run ARGOCD_BASE_URL=https://argo.example.com ARGOCD_API_TOKEN=<token>

# Multiple instances via a token registry:
make run ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH=/path/to/tokens.json

# Both — a default instance plus extra instances resolved from the registry:
make dev ARGOCD_BASE_URL=https://argo.example.com ARGOCD_API_TOKEN=<token> \
  ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH=/path/to/tokens.json

See Token resolution for how the default token and registry interact. If ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH is set but the file is missing, unreadable, or malformed, the server fails closed at startup.

Keep tokens out of your shell history. Passing ARGOCD_API_TOKEN=<token> directly on the make command line records the secret in your shell history and exposes it in the process list. Prefer exporting it in the shell first so it never appears in the make invocation:

export ARGOCD_API_TOKEN=<token>
make run ARGOCD_BASE_URL=https://argo.example.com

A registry path (ARGOCD_TOKEN_REGISTRY_PATH) and base URL are not secrets, so they're fine to pass inline.

Do not place the registry file under dist/ — tsup builds with clean: true and wipes that directory on every build.

The HTTP server listens on POST /mcp (port 3000 by default) with a GET /healthz liveness endpoint. To send a request, first initialize a session (capture the mcp-session-id response header), then call a tool, passing one of the registered base URLs as the argocdBaseUrl argument:

# 1. Initialize a session — note the mcp-session-id response header
curl -sD - http://localhost:3000/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"curl","version":"1.0"}}}'

# 2. Call a tool, reusing that session id
curl -s http://localhost:3000/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'mcp-session-id: <session-id-from-step-1>' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_applications","arguments":{"argocdBaseUrl":"https://argo-a.example.com"}}}'

To avoid managing a session id, run in stateless mode (node dist/index.js http --stateless) so every POST /mcp is self-contained.

Upgrading ArgoCD Types

To update the TypeScript type definitions based on the latest Argo CD API specification:

1. Download the swagger.json file from the ArgoCD release page, for example here is the swagger.json link for ArgoCD v2.14.11.

2. Place the downloaded swagger.json file in the root directory of the argocd-mcp project.

3. Generate the TypeScript types from the Swagger definition by running the following command. This will create or overwrite the src/types/argocd.d.ts file:

   pnpm run generate-types
   

4. Update the src/types/argocd-types.ts file to export the required types from the newly generated src/types/argocd.d.ts. This step often requires manual review to ensure only necessary types are exposed.

Credits

The project was initially created and donated by @jiachengxu, @imwithye, @hwwn, and @alexmt from Akuity.