Kubernetes MCP Server – 5G Core Edition

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes your Kubernetes cluster state with full 5G Core / telecom awareness to any MCP-compatible LLM (Claude Desktop, etc.).

Features

Generic Kubernetes tools

5G Telecom-specific tools

MCP Resources (static reference)

• 5g://nf-reference – 3GPP TS 23.501 NF descriptions, SBI APIs, interface mapping

• 5g://interface-map – N1–N26 reference-point descriptions

Related MCP server: K8s AI Assistant MCP Server

Supported 5G NFs (auto-detected from pod/deployment names & labels)

AMF · SMF · UPF · NRF · AUSF · UDM · UDR · PCF · NSSF · BSF · CHF · AF · N3IWF · SEPP

Tested against: Open5GS, free5GC, SD-Core, OAI-CN5G

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.11

• kubectl configured (in-cluster or local ~/.kube/config)

Installation

pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the server (stdio)

python server.py

The server communicates over stdio using the MCP protocol. It auto-detects in-cluster config, then falls back to ~/.kube/config. If neither is available it runs in mock mode with representative 5G core data.

HTTP Streamable transport (network-accessible)

This project also supports the MCP Streamable HTTP transport, which exposes an HTTP/SSE endpoint suitable for remote clients and deployments in Kubernetes.

Run locally:

export MCP_TRANSPORT=http
export MCP_HTTP_HOST=0.0.0.0
export MCP_HTTP_PORT=8000
# Require auth (recommended)
export DANGEROUSLY_OMIT_AUTH=false
export MCP_HTTP_BEARER_TOKEN="<your-long-random-token>"
python server.py
# Health checks
curl http://localhost:8000/health
curl http://localhost:8000/ready

MCP endpoint URL: http://localhost:8000/mcp

Register with Claude (example):

claude mcp add --transport http k8s-5g http://localhost:8000/mcp

Kubernetes deployment is provided under k8s/. The container image defaults to MCP_TRANSPORT=http and exposes port 8000 with readiness/liveness probes.

Notes:

• Streamable HTTP requires Accept headers that include both application/json and text/event-stream for POST requests.

• The server uses SSE for streaming responses by default.

Authentication (HTTP transport)

When running with MCP_TRANSPORT=http, this server supports a simple Bearer token guard on the /mcp endpoint.

• Set DANGEROUSLY_OMIT_AUTH=false (default in Docker image) to enforce auth

• Provide the secret in MCP_HTTP_BEARER_TOKEN

• Health endpoints (/health, /ready) remain unauthenticated

Examples:

# Start server locally with a token
export MCP_TRANSPORT=http
export DANGEROUSLY_OMIT_AUTH=false
export MCP_HTTP_BEARER_TOKEN="s3cret-EXAMPLE-TOKEN"
python server.py

# Unauthorized request (401)
curl -i -X POST \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"1","method":"initialize","params":{}}' \
  http://localhost:8000/mcp

# Authorized request (will advance handshake rather than 401)
curl -i -X POST \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer s3cret-EXAMPLE-TOKEN' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"1","method":"initialize","params":{}}' \
  http://localhost:8000/mcp

Kubernetes:

# Create secret with your token
kubectl -n mcp5g create secret generic mcp5g-auth \
  --from-literal=token="s3cret-EXAMPLE-TOKEN"

# Apply namespace/RBAC/deployment
kubectl apply -f k8s/namespace.yaml
kubectl apply -f k8s/rbac.yaml
kubectl apply -f k8s/deployment.yaml

Security notes:

• Use a long, random token. Rotate via Secret update and rollout.

• For public endpoints, place this behind TLS and a network perimeter/proxy.

• For advanced OAuth 2.1 integration, consider wiring mcp.server.auth as a future enhancement.

Claude Desktop integration (stdio)

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "k8s-5g": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/k8s-5g-mcp/server.py"],
      "env": {
        "KUBECONFIG": "/home/youruser/.kube/config"
      }
    }
  }
}

Example LLM prompts

Show me the full 5G core topology in my cluster.
What is the health status of the AMF?
Are there any PFCP errors in the UPF logs?
What S-NSSAIs (slices) are configured?
Is DPDK enabled on my UPF node?
Run a full 5G core health check and give me recommendations.
Show me all pods in the open5gs namespace and classify them by NF type.

Architecture

LLM (Claude Desktop / any MCP client)
        │  MCP (stdio / JSON-RPC 2.0)
        ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  server.py  (MCP Server)            │
│  ┌───────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐ │
│  │ k8s_client│  │telecom_analyzer │ │
│  │  (k8s SDK)│  │  (3GPP logic)   │ │
│  └─────┬─────┘  └────────┬────────┘ │
└────────┼─────────────────┼──────────┘
         │ kubernetes API  │ ConfigMap / log parsing
         ▼
   Kubernetes Cluster
   (5G Core workloads: AMF, SMF, UPF, NRF, …)

Mock mode

If no kubeconfig is found, the server starts in mock mode and returns a representative open5gs-style cluster with 8 NFs, DPDK on worker-2, and pre-seeded log entries for testing.