MCP Server for Perses

Warning

This MCP Server is currently in beta. Features and tools may change, and stability is not guaranteed. Feedback and contributions are most welcome!

Overview

The Perses MCP Server is a local Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server that enables the LLM hosts(Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cursor) to interact with the Perses Application in a standardized way.

Demo

Claude Desktop

perses-claude.mov

VS Code with GitHub Copilot

perses-mcp-demo-vs-code.mov

Pre-requisites

• percli
• PERSES_TOKEN

Obtaining Your Perses Authentication Token

1. Login to your Perses server using the percli command line tool:

percli login <PERSES_SERVER_URL>

For example, percli login https://demo.perses.dev.

Or percli login http://localhost:8080 if you are running perses/perses locally from the source code or from the perses image.

2. After successful login, retrieve your token:

percli whoami --show-token

Copy the token to use in your MCP server configuration.

WARNING: Your login will automatically expire in 15 minutes. If you want to extend the token duration, you can change the access_token_ttl setting in the Perses app configuration, then restart the app (if running locally) or rebuild the Docker image.

Download the MCP Server Binary

Download from Releases

1. Go to the releases page
2. Download the appropriate binary for your operating system and architecture
3. Extract the binary to a location of your choice
4. Make the binary executable (on Unix-like systems):

   chmod +x /path/to/mcp-server

5. Copy the absolute path to the binary (e.g., /path/to/mcp-server) to use in your MCP server configuration

Transport Modes

The Perses MCP Server supports both the transport modes: STDIO mode and Streamable HTTP mode.

STDIO Mode

In this mode, the MCP server communicates with the LLM host via standard input and output (STDIO).

For more details, see the MCP Protocol Specification docs.

Install in Claude Desktop

perses-mcp-demo-vs-code.mov

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Create or edit the Claude Desktop configuration file at:

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
   • Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

You can easily access this file via the Claude Desktop app by navigating to Claude > Settings > Developer > Edit Config.

2. Add the following JSON block to the configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perses-mcp": {
      "command": "<ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_PERSES_MCP_BINARY>",
      "args": [
        "--perses-server-url",
        "<PERSES_SERVER_URL>"
        // Add "--read-only" here for read-only mode
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERSES_TOKEN": "<PERSES_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect.

Install in VS Code

Add the following JSON code snippet to the VS Code MCP Config file. See VS Code MCP documentation for more details.

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "perses-token",
      "description": "PERSES_TOKEN to connect with Perses Application",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "perses-mcp": {
      "command": "<ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_PERSES_MCP_BINARY>",
      "args": [
        "--perses-server-url",
        "http://localhost:8080"
        // Add "--read-only" here for read-only mode
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERSES_TOKEN": "${input:perses-token}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Streamable HTTP Mode

The Streamable HTTP mode allows the MCP server to communicate with LLM hosts over HTTP, similar to a regular web API. This mode is particularly useful for:

• Remote hosting: Deploy the MCP server on a cloud instance or remote server
• Multiple clients: Allow multiple LLM hosts to connect to the same server instance

For more details, see the MCP Protocol Specification Docs.

Before starting the MCP server, set your Perses authentication token:

export PERSES_TOKEN=<YOUR_PERSES_TOKEN>

Run the following command to start the MCP server in Streamable HTTP mode:

/path/to/mcp-server --transport streamable-http --perses-server-url <PERSES_SERVER_URL> --port 8000

Install in VS Code

Add the following JSON code snippet to the VS Code MCP Config file. See [VS Code MCP documentation](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/chat/mcp-servers) for more details.

{
  "servers": {
    "perses-http": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:<port>/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Command-Line Flags

The Perses MCP Server supports several command-line flags to customize its behavior:

Flag	Default	Description
--perses-server-url	http://localhost:8080	The Perses backend server URL
--log-level	info	Log level (options: debug, info, warn, error)
--transport	stdio	MCP protocol transport mechanism (options: stdio, streamable-http)
--port	8000	Port to run the HTTP Streamable server on (only used with streamable-http transport)
--read-only	false	Restrict the server to read-only operations

Local Development

Build from Source

If you want to build the MCP server from source code (for development or contribution purposes), run the following command from the source code root directory:

make build

This should create a bin directory which contains the binary named mcp-server. Copy the absolute path to the binary to use in your MCP server configuration.

Tools

Note

When running in read-only mode (--read-only flag), only tools that retrieve information are available. Write operations like create_project, create_dashboard, create_global_datasource, update_global_datasource, and create_project_variable are disabled in read-only mode.

Projects

Tool	Description	Required Parameters
perses_list_projects	List all projects	-
perses_get_project_by_name	Get a project by name	project
perses_create_project	Create a new project	project

Dashboards

Tool	Description	Required Parameters
perses_list_dashboards	List all dashboards for a specific project	project
perses_get_dashboard_by_name	Get a dashboard by name for a project	project, dashboard
perses_create_dashboard	Create a dashboard given a project and dashboard configuration	project, dashboard

For dashboard configuration, see Perses Dashboards

Datasources

Tool	Description	Required Parameters	Optional Parameters
perses_list_global_datasources	List all global datasources	-	-
perses_list_datasources	List all datasources for a specific project	project	-
perses_get_global_datasource_by_name	Get a global datasource by name	datasource	-
perses_get_project_datasource_by_name	Get a project datasource by name	project, datasource	-
perses_create_global_datasource	Create a new global datasource	name, type, url	display_name, proxy_type
perses_update_global_datasource	Update an existing global datasource	name, type, url	display_name, proxy_type

Roles

Tool	Description	Required Parameters
perses_list_global_roles	List all global roles	-
perses_get_global_role_by_name	Get a global role by name	role
perses_list_global_role_bindings	List all global role bindings	-
perses_get_global_role_binding_by_name	Get a global role binding by name	roleBinding
perses_list_project_roles	List all roles for a specific project	project
perses_get_project_role_by_name	Get a project role by name	project, role
perses_list_project_role_bindings	List all role bindings for a project	project
perses_get_project_role_binding_by_name	Get a project role binding by name	project, roleBinding

Plugins

Tool	Description	Required Parameters
perses_list_plugins	List all plugins	-

Variables

Tool	Description	Required Parameters
perses_list_global_variables	List all global variables	-
perses_get_global_variable_by_name	Get a global variable by name	variable
perses_list_variables	List all variables for a specific project	project
perses_get_project_variable_by_name	Get a project variable by name	project, variable
perses_create_project_variable	Create a project level variable	name, project

License

The code is licensed under an Apache 2.0 license.