🦊 kafka-mcp

An MCP server that gives your AI agents eyes into Apache Kafka.

kafka-mcp exposes Kafka administration operations as Model Context Protocol tools, so assistants like Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any MCP-compatible client can inspect your cluster in plain language — "list all my topics with their replication factor" — instead of you reaching for the CLI.

It ships with a batteries-included docker-compose.yml that spins up a complete local Kafka lab (KRaft broker + Schema Registry + Web UI) so you can try it end-to-end in minutes.

✨ Features

• 🔌 Drop-in MCP server — runs over stdio, so any MCP client can launch it as a subprocess.

• 📋 Topic introspection — list topics with their partition count and replication factor, with an option to include or hide internal (__) topics.

• ⚡ Async-friendly — blocking Kafka admin calls are offloaded to worker threads so the event loop stays snappy.

• 🐳 Self-contained local lab — one docker compose up gives you Kafka (KRaft, no ZooKeeper), Schema Registry, and a Web UI.

• 🛠️ Tiny & hackable — a single main.py you can read in one sitting and extend with new tools.

Related MCP server: Kafka MCP Server

🧭 How it works

┌──────────────────┐   MCP over stdio   ┌──────────────────┐   Kafka Admin API   ┌──────────────────┐
│   AI Agent       │ ◀───────────────▶  │   kafka-mcp      │ ◀────────────────▶  │   Kafka broker   │
│ (Claude, etc.)   │   tool calls       │  (FastMCP server)│   confluent-kafka   │  (localhost:9092)│
└──────────────────┘                    └──────────────────┘                     └──────────────────┘

The agent never talks to Kafka directly — it calls a tool, kafka-mcp translates that into a confluent-kafka admin request, and returns structured JSON the model can reason about.

📦 Prerequisites

• Python 3.12+

• uv for dependency management (recommended)

• Docker + Docker Compose (only if you want the local Kafka lab)

🚀 Quick start

1. Clone & install

git clone <your-repo-url> kafka-mcp
cd kafka-mcp
uv sync

2. Start a local Kafka (optional, but handy)

docker compose up -d

This brings up three services:

💡 Auto-create topics is enabled, so you can produce to a new topic and watch it appear via the MCP list_topics tool.

3. Run the MCP server

uv run main.py

You should see:

Kafka MCP for you agents!

The server is now listening on stdio, ready for an MCP client to connect.

🤖 Connecting an MCP client

Most clients (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, …) launch MCP servers from a JSON config. Point them at this project like so:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kafka-zaksway": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/kafka-mcp", "run", "main.py"],
      "env": {
        "BOOTSTRAP_SERVER": "localhost:9092"
      }
    }
  }
}

• Claude Desktop → add the block to claude_desktop_config.json.

• Claude Code → claude mcp add kafka-zaksway -- uv --directory /absolute/path/to/kafka-mcp run main.py

Restart the client, and kafka-zaksway will appear among your available tools.

🧰 Available tools

list_topics

List Kafka topics with their partition count and replication factor.

Example response:

[
  { "name": "orders",   "partitions": 6, "replication-factor": 1 },
  { "name": "payments", "partitions": 3, "replication-factor": 1 }
]

⚙️ Configuration

The server is configured entirely through environment variables.

🗂️ Project structure

kafka-mcp/
├── main.py             # The MCP server + tool definitions
├── docker-compose.yml  # Local Kafka lab (broker + schema registry + UI)
├── pyproject.toml      # Project metadata & dependencies
├── uv.lock             # Pinned dependency lockfile
└── README.md           # You are here

🛣️ Roadmap

A few natural next tools to add:

• create_topic / delete_topic

• Describe consumer groups & their lag

• Read/alter topic configs

• Peek at the latest messages on a topic

🧑‍💻 Author

Zakaria BOUAZZA : https://zakaria.lu

📄 License

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