Bring Your Own Keys — credentials stay in env vars on your machine. No clone, no build, runs via npx.

Partial setup — configure only the backends you use. Tools for unconfigured backends are never exposed.

How it works

⚡ Quick Start

Option A — Interactive wizard (recommended)

Run once, answer a few questions, get a ready-made .mcp.json:

npx byok-observability-mcp --init

The wizard will:

• Let you pick which backends to configure
• Ask for credentials per service
• Test connectivity with your real endpoints before writing anything
• Write .mcp.json to your project root or ~/.claude/ — your choice

Then just start Claude Code:

claude

[!TIP] That's it. No clone, no build, no env file. Works in under 60 seconds.

Option B — Manual .mcp.json

Create .mcp.json in your project root. Include only the backends you need.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "observability-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "byok-observability-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL":    "https://grafana.mycompany.internal",
        "GRAFANA_TOKEN":  "glsa_...",
        "PROMETHEUS_URL": "https://prometheus.mycompany.internal",
        "KAFKA_UI_URL":   "https://kafka-ui.mycompany.internal",
        "DD_API_KEY":     "your-datadog-api-key",
        "DD_APP_KEY":     "your-datadog-app-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Credentials in git? Use the ${VAR} approach instead — see Configuration → Method B.

Start Claude Code:

claude

Claude Code reads .mcp.json automatically. No claude mcp add, no build step.

Verify by asking Claude:

What observability tools do you have available?

🧩 Supported clients

| Client | Configuration | |--------|--------------| | Claude Code | .mcp.json in project root (recommended) or claude mcp add CLI | | OpenAI Codex CLI | .mcp.json in project root — same format as Claude Code |

Both clients read .mcp.json automatically. The Quick Start above works for either.

# Same .mcp.json as above works out of the box
codex

Or add via CLI:

codex mcp add --transport stdio observability-mcp -- npx -y byok-observability-mcp

🔧 Available tools

Always available. Checks connectivity across all configured backends.

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | obs_health_check | Unified Health Check. Runs a parallel check on all backends and returns a status table. |

Enabled when GRAFANA_URL + GRAFANA_TOKEN are set.

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | grafana_health | Check connectivity, version, and database status | | grafana_list_datasources | List all datasources (name, type, UID) | | grafana_query_metrics | Run a PromQL expression via a Grafana datasource | | grafana_list_dashboards | Search and list dashboards by name or tag | | grafana_get_dashboard | Get panels and metadata for a dashboard by UID | | grafana_list_alerts | List active alerts from Alertmanager (firing/pending) | | grafana_get_alert_rules | List all configured alert rules across all folders |

Enabled when PROMETHEUS_URL is set.

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | prometheus_health | Check connectivity | | prometheus_query | Instant PromQL query — current value of a metric | | prometheus_query_range | Range PromQL query — metric values over time | | prometheus_list_metrics | List all available metric names | | prometheus_metric_metadata | Get help text and type for a specific metric |

Enabled when KAFKA_UI_URL is set.

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | kafka_list_clusters | List configured Kafka clusters and their status | | kafka_list_topics | List topics in a cluster | | kafka_describe_topic | Get partition count, replication factor, and config | | kafka_list_consumer_groups | List consumer groups and their state | | kafka_consumer_group_lag | Get per-partition lag for a consumer group | | kafka_broker_health | Broker count and disk usage per broker |

Enabled when both DD_API_KEY and DD_APP_KEY are set. Proxies the official Datadog MCP server.

Default toolsets: core, apm, alerting. Set DD_TOOLSETS=all to load everything.

| Toolset | Covers | |---------|--------| | core | Metrics, dashboards, monitors, infrastructure | | apm | APM services, traces, service map | | alerting | Monitors, downtimes, alerts | | logs | Log search and analytics | | incidents | Incident management | | ddsql | SQL-style metric queries | | security | Cloud security posture | | synthetics | Synthetic test results | | networks | Network performance monitoring | | dbm | Database monitoring | | software-delivery | CI/CD pipelines | | llm-obs | LLM observability | | cases | Case management | | feature-flags | Feature flag tracking |

🔑 Getting credentials

1. Open Grafana → Administration → Users and access → Service accounts
2. Click Add service account → set Role to Viewer → Create
3. On the service account page → Add service account token → Generate token
4. Copy the token (starts with glsa_) — you won't see it again

GRAFANA_URL=https://grafana.mycompany.internal
GRAFANA_TOKEN=glsa_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If your Grafana uses a self-signed certificate:

GRAFANA_VERIFY_SSL=false

If Prometheus has no authentication:

PROMETHEUS_URL=https://prometheus.mycompany.internal

If Prometheus uses basic auth:

PROMETHEUS_URL=https://prometheus.mycompany.internal
PROMETHEUS_USERNAME=your-username
PROMETHEUS_PASSWORD=your-password

If Kafka UI has no authentication:

KAFKA_UI_URL=https://kafka-ui.mycompany.internal

If Kafka UI requires a login:

KAFKA_UI_URL=https://kafka-ui.mycompany.internal
KAFKA_UI_USERNAME=admin
KAFKA_UI_PASSWORD=your-password

API key: Datadog → Organization Settings → API Keys → New Key

Application key: Datadog → Organization Settings → Application Keys → New Key

DD_SITE — match your Datadog login URL:

| Login URL | DD_SITE | |-----------|---------| | app.datadoghq.com | datadoghq.com (default) | | app.us3.datadoghq.com | us3.datadoghq.com | | app.us5.datadoghq.com | us5.datadoghq.com | | app.datadoghq.eu | datadoghq.eu | | app.ap1.datadoghq.com | ap1.datadoghq.com |

DD_API_KEY=your-api-key
DD_APP_KEY=your-application-key
DD_SITE=datadoghq.com
DD_TOOLSETS=core,apm,alerting

⚙️ Configuration

Method A — Values directly in .mcp.json (simplest)

Put credentials directly in .mcp.json. Works everywhere, no extra steps.

Add .mcp.json to your .gitignore if the repo is shared.

Use ${VAR} placeholders in .mcp.json and put real values in .env.

.mcp.json (safe to commit — contains no secrets):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "observability-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "byok-observability-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL":    "${GRAFANA_URL}",
        "GRAFANA_TOKEN":  "${GRAFANA_TOKEN}",
        "PROMETHEUS_URL": "${PROMETHEUS_URL}",
        "KAFKA_UI_URL":   "${KAFKA_UI_URL}",
        "DD_API_KEY":     "${DD_API_KEY}",
        "DD_APP_KEY":     "${DD_APP_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

.env (add to .gitignore):

GRAFANA_URL=https://grafana.mycompany.internal
GRAFANA_TOKEN=glsa_...

Start Claude with the env loaded:

set -a && source .env && set +a && claude

A ready-made helper script is included:

./scripts/run-claude-with-env.sh

A template .mcp.json with all variables is available as .mcp.json.example.

Add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "observability-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "byok-observability-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GRAFANA_URL":   "https://grafana.mycompany.internal",
        "GRAFANA_TOKEN": "glsa_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

📋 Environment variables

| Variable | Backend | Required | Description | |----------|---------|:--------:|-------------| | GRAFANA_URL | Grafana | ✅ | Base URL of your Grafana instance | | GRAFANA_TOKEN | Grafana | ✅ | Service account token (Viewer role) | | GRAFANA_VERIFY_SSL | Grafana | | Set to false to skip TLS verification | | PROMETHEUS_URL | Prometheus | ✅ | Base URL of your Prometheus instance | | PROMETHEUS_USERNAME | Prometheus | | Basic auth username | | PROMETHEUS_PASSWORD | Prometheus | | Basic auth password | | KAFKA_UI_URL | Kafka UI | ✅ | Base URL of your Kafka UI instance | | KAFKA_UI_USERNAME | Kafka UI | | Login username | | KAFKA_UI_PASSWORD | Kafka UI | | Login password | | DD_API_KEY | Datadog | ✅ | Datadog API key | | DD_APP_KEY | Datadog | ✅ | Datadog Application key | | DD_SITE | Datadog | | Datadog site (default: datadoghq.com) | | DD_TOOLSETS | Datadog | | Tool groups to load (default: core,apm,alerting) | | SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL | Reports | ✅* | Slack Incoming Webhook URL for scheduled reports | | REPORT_BACKENDS | Reports | | Comma-separated backends to include in reports (default: all configured) |

📊 Scheduled Reports

Send an automated observability digest to Slack on a schedule — no Claude or Codex instance needs to be running.

How it works

cron / launchd
     │  fires every N minutes
     ▼
npx byok-observability-mcp --report
     │
     │  reads env vars, connects directly to backends
     ▼
Grafana · Prometheus · Kafka UI
     │
     │  categorizes findings → P0 / P1 / P2 / P3
     ▼
Slack Incoming Webhook  →  #your-channel

The command collects data, categorizes every finding by severity, formats a Slack message, sends it, and exits. It is completely stateless.

Severity levels

| Level | Meaning | Examples | |-------|---------|---------| | 🔴 P0 — KRİTİK | Service down or unreachable | Grafana alert firing (critical), Kafka cluster offline, backend unreachable | | 🟠 P1 — YÜKSEK | Degraded, action needed soon | Grafana alert firing (non-critical), Kafka consumer lag > 10 000 | | 🟡 P2 — ORTA | Warning, monitor closely | Grafana alert pending, Kafka consumer lag > 1 000 | | 🟢 P3 — BİLGİ | Informational, all normal | Healthy backends, silenced alerts |

Setup

Step 1 — Get a Slack Incoming Webhook URL

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps → Create New App → From scratch
2. Incoming Webhooks → toggle on → Add New Webhook to Workspace
3. Pick a channel → Allow → copy the Webhook URL

Step 2 — Set environment variables

export SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX/YYY/ZZZ

# Optional: restrict which backends are included (default: all configured)
export REPORT_BACKENDS=grafana,prometheus,kafka

Step 3 — Run a one-off report to verify

npx byok-observability-mcp --report

You should see a message in your Slack channel within seconds.

Step 4 — Schedule with cron

Open your crontab:

crontab -e

Add a line. Examples:

# Every hour at minute 0
0 * * * * SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/... GRAFANA_URL=... GRAFANA_TOKEN=... npx byok-observability-mcp --report >> /tmp/obs-report.log 2>&1

# Every 30 minutes
*/30 * * * * SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/... npx byok-observability-mcp --report >> /tmp/obs-report.log 2>&1

[!TIP] Put all env vars in a .env file and source it inside the cron command to keep the crontab clean:

0 * * * * bash -c 'source /path/to/.env && npx byok-observability-mcp --report' >> /tmp/obs-report.log 2>&1

Alternative: macOS launchd (runs on login, survives reboots)

Create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.observability-mcp.report.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.observability-mcp.report</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/npx</string>
    <string>byok-observability-mcp</string>
    <string>--report</string>
  </array>
  <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
  <dict>
    <key>SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL</key>
    <string>https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX/YYY/ZZZ</string>
    <key>GRAFANA_URL</key>
    <string>https://grafana.mycompany.internal</string>
    <key>GRAFANA_TOKEN</key>
    <string>glsa_...</string>
  </dict>
  <key>StartInterval</key>
  <integer>3600</integer>
  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/obs-report.log</string>
  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/tmp/obs-report.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Load it:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.observability-mcp.report.plist

To stop: launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.observability-mcp.report.plist

💬 Example prompts

Single-backend queries

| Backend | Try asking Claude... | |---------|---------------------| | Grafana | "List all datasources and tell me which ones are Prometheus type." | | Grafana | "Search for dashboards related to 'kubernetes' — list names and UIDs." | | Grafana | "Query http_requests_total rate over the last hour via the default Prometheus datasource." | | Prometheus | "What is the current value of the up metric? Which targets are down?" | | Prometheus | "Show CPU usage (node_cpu_seconds_total rate) over the past hour, by instance." | | Prometheus | "List all available metrics that start with http_." | | Kafka UI | "List all Kafka clusters. Are there any with offline brokers?" | | Kafka UI | "Describe the topic 'orders' in cluster 'production' — partitions and replication factor?" | | Kafka UI | "Check consumer lag for group 'order-processor'. Which partitions have the highest lag?" | | Datadog | "List all Datadog monitors currently in Alert state." | | Datadog | "Show APM service performance for the past hour. Which services have the highest error rate?" | | Datadog | "Query aws.ec2.cpuutilization for the last 30 minutes. Which hosts are above 80%?" |

🛠️ Incident Response (v0.2.0+)

| Goal | Try asking Claude... | |------|---------------------| | Health | "Run a health check on all systems." | | Alerts | "Are there any firing alerts in Grafana right now?" | | Triage | "Show me the alert rules for the 'Production' folder." |

Cross-backend queries

Check the health of all configured observability backends and give me a summary.

I'm seeing high error rates. Check Prometheus for http_requests_total with status=500,
then look for related Datadog monitors that might be alerting.

🔒 Security

[!NOTE] All tools are read-only. No write operations are performed on any backend.

[!IMPORTANT] Credentials are read from environment variables and never logged or sent to Anthropic. Tokens are redacted in all error messages.

• TLS certificate verification is enabled by default
• The MCP process runs locally — your infrastructure URLs only reach Claude's context window if you type them into the chat

Least-privilege recommendations:

| Backend | Recommended role | |---------|-----------------| | Grafana | Service account with Viewer role | | Prometheus | Network-level read-only access | | Kafka UI | Read-only UI user | | Datadog | API key + Application key with read scopes |

🛠 Development

git clone https://github.com/alimuratkuslu/byok-observability-mcp
cd byok-observability-mcp
npm install
npm run dev          # run with tsx (no build step)
npm run build        # compile to dist/
npm run typecheck    # TypeScript check without emitting

Tested versions

| Backend | Tested version | |---------|---------------| | Grafana | v9.x, v10.x, v11.x | | Prometheus | v2.x | | Kafka UI | provectus/kafka-ui:v0.7.2 |

License

MIT