@aderlo/mcp

MCP server for Aderlo Cloud hosting — lets an AI agent (Claude, or anything MCP-capable) manage a hosting account through the customer's own scoped API key.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aderlo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@aderlo/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ADERLO_ACCOUNT": "youraccount",
        "ADERLO_API_KEY": "your API key from the panel"
      }
    }
  }
}

Create the key in the hosting panel under Advanced Features → Login Keys — scope it to the commands you want the agent to have, pin it to your IP, and keep Allow Login off. DirectAdmin enforces the boundary server-side: the key cannot reach outside your account.

Key scope

DirectAdmin has two permission vocabularies and the key needs entries from both:

| Tools | Required allowCommands entries | |---|---| | domains, usage | CMD_API_SHOW_DOMAINS, CMD_API_SHOW_USER_USAGE | | DNS | CMD_API_DNS_CONTROL | | databases, mailboxes | CMD_API_DATABASES, CMD_API_POP | | all file tools | filemanager (reads) and filemanager-actions (writes) — lowercase, verbatim |

CMD_FILE_MANAGER alone does not open the modern /api/filemanager/* endpoints the file tools use (verified live 2026-07-19).

Tools

| Tool | What it does | |---|---| | list_domains | Domains on the account | | account_usage | Bandwidth, quota, inode and mail usage — for limit monitoring | | list_dns_records | Full zone of a domain, typed | | add_dns_record | Adds A/AAAA/CNAME/TXT/MX/NS — and verifies with a follow-up zone read | | list_databases | MySQL databases | | list_email_accounts | Mailboxes of a domain | | list_files | Directory listing (site files live in /domains/<domain>/public_html) | | read_file | Text file content, capped at 256 KiB, binary-safe (reports instead of dumping) | | write_file | Create/overwrite a text file — verified by re-download and compare | | create_directory | mkdir, verified with a follow-up listing | | delete_to_trash | Moves to the account trash only — never permanent, restorable from the panel | | search_files | Find files by name | | search_text | Grep file contents |

Every tool wraps a command that was executed against a live customer account before being included. Write tools report verified: true/false from an actual re-read, because the upstream API can answer success without having done the work — agents should trust the verified field, not the absence of an error.

Development

npm run build --workspace=@aderlo/mcp   # tsc typecheck + esbuild bundle (single-file dist)
ADERLO_ACCOUNT=... ADERLO_API_KEY=... node packages/mcp-server/dist/index.js

The bundle inlines the workspace @aderlo/directadmin client (it is not published to npm); @modelcontextprotocol/sdk, zod and undici stay external as regular dependencies.

Publishing: npm publish --workspace=@aderlo/mcp (runs the build via prepublishOnly; scoped packages publish public via publishConfig).