Edge Flow Manager MCP Server

A thin, read-only Model Context Protocol server that gives LLMs and AI agents (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, LangChain, Agent Studio) live state from a Cloudera Edge Flow Manager (EFM / CEM) instance — the control plane for MiNiFi agents at the edge.

Practitioner-grade MCP servers already ship for NiFi, Cloudera Manager, Iceberg, Trino, and Grafana — but nothing shipped for the edge. This is that server. It is the companion to the Cloudera Manager MCP Server: CM covers the datacenter, this covers everything MiNiFi runs at the edge.

MiNiFi has no REST API of its own. Its command-and-control state — which agents are alive, what flow each is running, what it's allowed to run — all lives in EFM. So an MCP server over EFM is an MCP server over the MiNiFi fleet.

Every tool is GET-only. There are no write, publish, or config-mutation paths in v1 (see Roadmap).

Tools

Agent classes & agents (5)

Manifests (2)

Designer flows (3)

Resources (2)

Related MCP server: Cloudera Hive MCP Server

Prerequisites

1. Git — brew install git

2. Node.js — for npx / MCP Inspector: brew install node

3. uv — curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

4. A reachable EFM / CEM instance. EFM's default HTTP port is 10090; the REST base is http://<efm-host>:10090/efm/api.

On Kubernetes (the CSO / CFM operator), reach EFM with kubectl port-forward service/efm 10090:10090 -n <namespace> and point EFM_BASE_URL at http://127.0.0.1:10090/efm/api.

Step 1 — Clone

git clone https://github.com/cldr-steven-matison/edge-flow-manager-mcp-server.git
cd edge-flow-manager-mcp-server

Step 2 — Configure

cp .env.example .env
$EDITOR .env
set -a; source .env; set +a

Minimal .env (unauthenticated EFM — the default):

EFM_BASE_URL=http://efm-host:10090/efm/api

With HTTP Basic and a self-signed TLS cert:

EFM_BASE_URL=https://efm-host:10090/efm/api
EFM_USER=admin
EFM_PASSWORD=yourpassword
EFM_VERIFY_SSL=false

Step 3 — Run with MCP Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector@0.14.0 uv run --directory . run-server

Pin the Inspector to the v1 line (@0.14.0). This server pins mcp<2 (the v1 FastMCP idiom, matching the sibling Cloudera MCP servers). The current @latest Inspector (2.x) completes tools/list but its Tools pane renders empty against a v1 server — the tool list simply doesn't show. @0.14.0 (classic Connect → List Tools UI) lists all tools correctly. For an ad-hoc launch you may also need DANGEROUSLY_OMIT_AUTH=true to skip the proxy token locally.

The server prints (to stderr) whether EFM was wired up:

Starting Edge Flow Manager MCP Server via transport: stdio (EFM configured)

In the Inspector: Connect → List Tools → you should see all 12 tools.

Step 4 — Smoke tests

A typical investigation chains them: efm_list_agent_classes → efm_get_agent_class → efm_get_manifest → efm_list_flows → efm_get_flow → efm_validate_flow.

Step 5 — Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Local clone:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "edge-flow-manager": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--directory", "/abs/path/to/edge-flow-manager-mcp-server", "run-server"],
      "env": {
        "EFM_BASE_URL": "http://efm-host:10090/efm/api"
      }
    }
  }
}

Straight from GitHub (no clone), via uvx:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "edge-flow-manager": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "git+https://github.com/cldr-steven-matison/edge-flow-manager-mcp-server@main", "run-server"],
      "env": { "EFM_BASE_URL": "http://efm-host:10090/efm/api" }
    }
  }
}

Agent-loop mapping

Knowing which agents are alive is a different question than what flow they run, which is different again from what a class can run — exposing all three lets an agent join them in one investigation without leaving the conversation.

Configuration reference

All settings are environment variables (see .env.example for the annotated set): EFM_BASE_URL (the only required one), EFM_USER / EFM_PASSWORD (only if EFM enforces Basic), EFM_VERIFY_SSL (true | false | path to a CA bundle), plus globals EFM_MCP_TIMEOUT / EFM_MCP_RETRIES / EFM_MCP_RETRY_WAIT, MCP_TRANSPORT (stdio | sse), and EFM_READONLY (defaults true; v1 has no write paths — the flag is plumbed for the future write tools).

Roadmap

v1 is read-only and REST-only. Two extensions are deliberately deferred:

• Write tools, off by default. efm_add_processor, efm_add_connection, and efm_publish_flow, gated behind EFM_READONLY=false. A publish pushes the flow to every agent in the class on its next heartbeat, so these land only once the read tools are in real use. The EFM Flow Designer write API is one POST per processor and one per connection (no bulk create, no whole-flow PUT), with a GET .../validate clean before POST .../publish.

• Postgres-backed efm_get_operations(). EFM's operation / bulk_operation tables in Postgres are the durable truth for command history and reliable online/offline status; the REST view can lag or, under a crash-looping agent that floods the operation table, hang entirely. A read-only Postgres query is the robust source — added when operational history is needed.

Related Cloudera MCP Servers

• Cloudera Manager MCP Server — CM / YARN / Ranger / Atlas

• Cloudera NiFi MCP Server

• Cloudera Iceberg MCP Server

License

Apache-2.0.