ContextForge

An open source registry and proxy that federates MCP, A2A, and REST/gRPC APIs with centralized governance, discovery, and observability. Optimizes Agent & Tool calling, and supports plugins.

     

     

ContextForge is an open source registry and proxy that federates tools, agents, and APIs into one clean endpoint for your AI clients. It provides centralized governance, discovery, and observability across your AI infrastructure:

• Tools Gateway — MCP, REST, gRPC-to-MCP translation, and TOON compression
• Agent Gateway — A2A protocol, OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic agent routing
• API Gateway — Rate limiting, auth, retries, and reverse proxy for REST services
• Plugin Extensibility — 40+ plugins for additional transports, protocols, and integrations
• Observability — OpenTelemetry tracing with Phoenix, Jaeger, Zipkin, and other OTLP backends

It runs as a fully compliant MCP server, deployable via PyPI or Docker, and scales to multi-cluster environments on Kubernetes with Redis-backed federation and caching.

Table of Contents

• Overview & Goals
• Quick Start - PyPI
• Quick Start - Containers
  • Optional Web UI
• VS Code Dev Container
• Installation
• Upgrading
• Configuration
• Running
• Cloud Deployment
• API Reference
• Testing
• Project Structure
• Development
• Troubleshooting

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📌 Quick Links

Resource	Description
5-Minute Setup	Get started fast — uvx, Docker, Compose, or local dev
Getting Help	Support options, FAQ, community channels
Issue Guide	How to file bugs, request features, contribute
Full Documentation	Complete guides, tutorials, API reference
Deprecations	Deprecated runtime paths and migration guidance

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Overview & Goals

ContextForge is an open source registry and proxy that federates any Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, A2A server, or REST/gRPC API, providing centralized governance, discovery, and observability. It optimizes agent and tool calling, and supports plugins. See the project roadmap for more details.

It currently supports:

• Federation across multiple MCP and REST services
• A2A (Agent-to-Agent) integration for external AI agents (OpenAI, Anthropic, custom)
• gRPC-to-MCP translation via automatic reflection-based service discovery
• Virtualization of legacy APIs as MCP-compliant tools and servers
• Transport over HTTP, JSON-RPC, WebSocket, SSE (with configurable keepalive), and Streamable HTTP; stdio transport available for server-side use
• An Admin UI for real-time management, configuration, and log monitoring (with airgapped deployment support)
• A redesigned, more user-friendly Web UI that runs in a separate container
• Built-in auth, retries, and rate-limiting with user-scoped OAuth tokens and unconditional X-Upstream-Authorization header support
• OpenTelemetry observability with Phoenix, Jaeger, Zipkin, and other OTLP backends
• Scalable deployments via Docker or PyPI, Redis-backed caching, and multi-cluster federation

For a list of upcoming features, check out the ContextForge Roadmap

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• Federates any MCP server or REST API
• Lets you choose your MCP protocol version (e.g., 2025-11-25)
• Exposes a single, unified interface for diverse backends

• Wraps non-MCP services as virtual MCP servers
• Registers tools, prompts, and resources with minimal configuration
• gRPC-to-MCP translation via server reflection protocol
• Automatic service discovery and method introspection

• Adapts REST APIs into tools with:

  • Automatic JSON Schema extraction
  • Support for headers, tokens, and custom auth
  • Retry, timeout, and rate-limit policies

• Prompts: Jinja2 templates, multimodal support, rollback/versioning
• Resources: URI-based access, MIME detection, caching, SSE updates
• Tools: Native or adapted, with input validation and concurrency controls

• Admin UI built with HTMX 2.0.3 (bundled) + Alpine.js
• Real-time log viewer with filtering, search, and export capabilities
• Auth: Basic, JWT, or custom schemes
• Structured logs, health endpoints, metrics
• 7,000+ tests, Makefile targets, live reload, pre-commit hooks

• Vendor-agnostic tracing with OpenTelemetry (OTLP) protocol support
• Multiple backend support: Phoenix (LLM-focused), Jaeger, Zipkin, Tempo, DataDog, New Relic
• Distributed tracing across federated gateways and services
• Automatic instrumentation of tools, prompts, resources, and gateway operations
• LLM-specific metrics: Token usage, costs, model performance
• Zero-overhead when disabled with graceful degradation

See Observability Documentation for setup guides with Phoenix, Jaeger, and other backends.

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Quick Start - PyPI

ContextForge is published on PyPI as mcp-contextforge-gateway.

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⚠️ JWT_SECRET_KEY and AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET are required in every environment — including local development. The gateway will not start without them. Generate real secrets with python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets before first run.

TLDR — single command using uv:

# 1️⃣  Generate secure secrets (creates .env.secrets)
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets

# 2️⃣  Export the generated values
export JWT_SECRET_KEY="$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)"
export AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="$(grep '^AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)"

# 3️⃣  Start the gateway
JWT_SECRET_KEY="$JWT_SECRET_KEY" \
AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="$AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET" \
MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=true \
MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED=true \
[email protected] \
uvx --from mcp-contextforge-gateway mcpgateway --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4444

• Python ≥ 3.11
• curl + jq - only for the last smoke-test step

1 - Install & run (copy-paste friendly)

# 1️⃣  Create an isolated env and install from PyPI
mkdir mcpgateway && cd mcpgateway
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway

# 2️⃣  Download .env.example and generate real secrets
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/main/.env.example
cp .env.example .env

# Generate cryptographically secure secrets into .env.secrets
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets

# Patch the generated secrets into .env (replaces __REPLACE_ME__ placeholders)
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets --patch-env .env

# 3️⃣  Start the gateway
mcpgateway --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4444 &

# 4️⃣  Generate a bearer token and smoke-test
export JWT_SECRET_KEY=$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env | cut -d= -f2)
export MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN=$(python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
    --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "$JWT_SECRET_KEY")

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     http://127.0.0.1:4444/version | jq

# 1️⃣  Isolated env + install from PyPI
mkdir mcpgateway ; cd mcpgateway
python3 -m venv .venv ; .\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway

# 2️⃣  Download .env.example and generate real secrets
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/main/.env.example" -OutFile ".env.example"
Copy-Item .env.example .env

# Generate cryptographically secure secrets into .env.secrets
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets

# Patch the generated secrets into .env (replaces __REPLACE_ME__ placeholders)
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets --patch-env .env

# 3️⃣  Launch the gateway
mcpgateway.exe --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4444

# 4️⃣  Bearer token and smoke-test
$Env:JWT_SECRET_KEY = (Get-Content .env | Select-String '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=').ToString().Split('=')[1]
$Env:MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN = python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token `
    --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret $Env:JWT_SECRET_KEY

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $Env:MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" `
     http://127.0.0.1:4444/version | jq

# 1️⃣  Isolated env + install from PyPI using uv
mkdir mcpgateway ; cd mcpgateway
uv venv
.\.venv\Scripts\activate
uv pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway

# Continue with steps 2️⃣-4️⃣ above...

Copy .env.example to .env and tweak any of the settings (or use them as env variables).

# 1️⃣  Spin up the sample MCP time server using mcpgateway.translate & docker (replace docker with podman if needed)
python3 -m mcpgateway.translate \
     --stdio "docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/ibm/fast-time-server:latest -transport=stdio" \
     --expose-sse \
     --port 8003

# Or using the official mcp-server-git using uvx:
pip install uv # to install uvx, if not already installed
python3 -m mcpgateway.translate --stdio "uvx mcp-server-git" --expose-sse --port 9000

# NEW: Expose via multiple protocols simultaneously!
python3 -m mcpgateway.translate \
     --stdio "uvx mcp-server-git" \
     --expose-sse \
     --expose-streamable-http \
     --port 9000
# Now accessible via both /sse (SSE) and /mcp (streamable HTTP) endpoints

# 2️⃣  Register it with the gateway
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"name":"fast_time","url":"http://localhost:8003/sse"}' \
     http://localhost:4444/gateways

# 3️⃣  Verify tool catalog
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" http://localhost:4444/tools | jq

# 4️⃣  Create a *virtual server* bundling those tools. Use the ID of tools from the tool catalog (Step #3) and pass them in the associatedTools list.
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"server":{"name":"time_server","description":"Fast time tools","associated_tools":[<ID_OF_TOOLS>]}}' \
     http://localhost:4444/servers | jq

# Example curl
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"server":{"name":"time_server","description":"Fast time tools","associated_tools":["6018ca46d32a4ac6b4c054c13a1726a2"]}}' \
     http://localhost:4444/servers | jq

# 5️⃣  List servers (should now include the UUID of the newly created virtual server)
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" http://localhost:4444/servers | jq

# 6️⃣  Client HTTP endpoint. Inspect it interactively with the MCP Inspector CLI (or use any MCP client)
npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
# Transport Type: Streamable HTTP, URL: http://localhost:4444/servers/UUID_OF_SERVER_1/mcp,  Header Name: "Authorization", Bearer Token

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Quick Start - Containers

Use the official OCI image from GHCR with Docker or Podman. Please note: Currently, arm64 is not supported on production. If you are e.g. running on MacOS with Apple Silicon chips (M1, M2, etc), you can run the containers using Rosetta or install via PyPi instead.

🚀 Quick Start - Docker Compose

Important: docker compose up -d does not build the gateway image locally by default — it uses the pre-built image from GHCR. The compose file includes a build: block as a fallback, but local builds require a hermetic wheel closure that is only produced by the CI pipeline. If you see a cryptography or dependency resolution error during build, you are hitting this — just pull the image instead (step 2 below handles this automatically).

You also must have a .env file with real secrets before running docker compose up -d. The gateway will not start with placeholder values.

Get a full stack running with PostgreSQL and Redis:

# 1️⃣  Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge.git
cd mcp-context-forge

# 2️⃣  Set up .env with real secrets AND pull the pre-built images
cp .env.example .env
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets --patch-env .env
# .env now has strong JWT_SECRET_KEY and AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET

# Pull pre-built images from GHCR (avoids local build entirely)
docker pull ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest
echo 'IMAGE_LOCAL=ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest' >> .env

# Build only the nginx image (small, local-only, builds in seconds)
docker compose build nginx

# 3️⃣  Start the full stack
docker compose up -d

# 4️⃣  Check status
docker compose ps

# 5️⃣  View logs
docker compose logs -f gateway

# 6️⃣  Access Admin UI: http://localhost:8080/admin
#     Login: PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL / PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD (from .env)

# 7️⃣  Generate an API token
export JWT_SECRET_KEY=$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env | cut -d= -f2)
docker compose exec gateway python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
  --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "$JWT_SECRET_KEY"

What you get:

• 🗄️ PostgreSQL - Production-ready database with 55+ tables
• 🚀 ContextForge - Full-featured gateway with Admin UI
• 📊 Redis - High-performance caching and session storage
• 🔧 Admin Tools - pgAdmin, Redis Insight for database management
• 🌐 Nginx Proxy - Caching reverse proxy on port 8080

Enable HTTPS (optional):

# Start with TLS enabled (auto-generates self-signed certs)
make compose-tls

# Access via HTTPS: https://localhost:8443/admin

# Or bring your own certificates:
# Unencrypted key:
mkdir -p certs
cp your-cert.pem certs/cert.pem && cp your-key.pem certs/key.pem
make compose-tls

# Passphrase-protected key:
mkdir -p certs
cp your-cert.pem certs/cert.pem && cp your-encrypted-key.pem certs/key-encrypted.pem
echo "KEY_FILE_PASSWORD=your-passphrase" >> .env
make compose-tls

Optional Web UI

The ContextForge Web UI v0.2.4 provides a redesigned, more user-friendly interface, separate from the built-in Admin UI. It runs in its own container and connects to the gateway API.

After the Docker Compose setup above, start the Web UI with these commands from the gateway checkout:

make compose-pull PROFILE="--profile ui"
make compose-up PROFILE="--profile ui"

Open http://localhost:3001 and sign in with your gateway account. Set WEB_UI_PORT in .env to change the port. The ui profile starts the Web UI and its dedicated Redis session store alongside the gateway.

PROFILE replaces the Makefile's default profiles. On linux/amd64, use PROFILE="--profile with-fast-time --profile ui" in both commands to retain the default fast-time service.

For separate npm development setup, see the Web UI setup guide.

☸️ Quick Start - Helm (Kubernetes)

Deploy to Kubernetes with enterprise-grade features:

# Add Helm repository (when available)
# helm repo add mcp-context-forge https://ibm.github.io/mcp-context-forge
# helm repo update

# For now, use local chart
git clone https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge.git
cd mcp-context-forge/charts/mcp-stack

# Generate secrets first
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets
JWT_SECRET=$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)
ENC_SECRET=$(grep '^AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)

# Install with PostgreSQL (default)
# IMPORTANT: replace <strong-password> with a real password — do not use 'changeme' in production
helm install mcp-gateway . \
  --set mcpContextForge.secret.PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@yourcompany.com \
  --set mcpContextForge.secret.PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<strong-password> \
  --set mcpContextForge.secret.BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD=<strong-password> \
  --set "mcpContextForge.secret.JWT_SECRET_KEY=${JWT_SECRET}" \
  --set "mcpContextForge.secret.AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET=${ENC_SECRET}"

# Check deployment status
kubectl get pods -l app.kubernetes.io/name=mcp-context-forge

# Port forward to access Admin UI
kubectl port-forward svc/mcp-gateway-mcp-context-forge 4444:80
# Access: http://localhost:4444/admin

# Generate API token (reads JWT_SECRET_KEY from the pod's environment)
kubectl exec deployment/mcp-gateway-mcp-context-forge -- \
  python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
  --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "${JWT_SECRET}"

SSRF note: Helm defaults to strict SSRF settings (SSRF_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORKS=false). If you register in-cluster tool URLs, allow only your cluster CIDRs via mcpContextForge.config.SSRF_ALLOWED_NETWORKS or, for local-only benchmark setups, temporarily set SSRF_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORKS=true. See docs/docs/manage/configuration.md#ssrf-protection and docs/docs/deployment/helm.md.

Enterprise Features:

• 🔄 Auto-scaling - HPA with CPU/memory targets
• 🗄️ Database Choice - PostgreSQL (prod), SQLite (dev)
• 📊 Observability - Prometheus metrics, OpenTelemetry tracing
• 🔒 Security - RBAC, network policies, secret management
• 🚀 High Availability - Multi-replica deployments with Redis clustering
• 📈 Monitoring - Built-in Grafana dashboards and alerting

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🐳 Docker (Single Container)

# Generate secrets first (creates .env.secrets)
python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets
export JWT_SECRET_KEY="$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)"
export AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="$(grep '^AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET=' .env.secrets | cut -d= -f2)"

docker run -d --name mcpgateway \
  -p 4444:4444 \
  -e MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=true \
  -e MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED=true \
  -e HOST=0.0.0.0 \
  -e JWT_SECRET_KEY="${JWT_SECRET_KEY}" \
  -e AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="${AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET}" \
  -e AUTH_REQUIRED=true \
  -e [email protected] \
  -e PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<strong-password> \
  -e PLATFORM_ADMIN_FULL_NAME="Platform Administrator" \
  -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///./mcp.db \
  -e SECURE_COOKIES=false \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest

# Tail logs
docker logs -f mcpgateway

# Generate API token (using the same secret)
docker run --rm -it \
  -e JWT_SECRET_KEY="${JWT_SECRET_KEY}" \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest \
  python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
  --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "${JWT_SECRET_KEY}"

Browse to http://localhost:4444/admin and login with PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL / PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD.

Persist SQLite database:

mkdir -p $(pwd)/data && touch $(pwd)/data/mcp.db && chmod 777 $(pwd)/data
docker run -d --name mcpgateway --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 4444:4444 -v $(pwd)/data:/data \
  -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:////data/mcp.db \
  -e MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=true -e MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED=true \
  -e HOST=0.0.0.0 -e JWT_SECRET_KEY="${JWT_SECRET_KEY}" \
  -e AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="${AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET}" \
  -e [email protected] -e PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<strong-password> \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest

Host networking (access local MCP servers):

docker run -d --name mcpgateway --network=host \
  -v $(pwd)/data:/data -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:////data/mcp.db \
  -e MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=true -e HOST=0.0.0.0 -e PORT=4444 \
  -e JWT_SECRET_KEY="${JWT_SECRET_KEY}" -e AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="${AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET}" \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest

Airgapped deployment (no internet):

docker build -f Containerfile -t mcpgateway:airgapped .
docker run -d --name mcpgateway -p 4444:4444 \
  -e MCPGATEWAY_UI_AIRGAPPED=true -e MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED=true \
  -e HOST=0.0.0.0 -e JWT_SECRET_KEY="${JWT_SECRET_KEY}" \
  -e AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET="${AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET}" \
  mcpgateway:airgapped

---

🦭 Podman (rootless-friendly)

podman run -d --name mcpgateway \
  -p 4444:4444 -e HOST=0.0.0.0 -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///./mcp.db \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-3

Persist SQLite:

mkdir -p $(pwd)/data && chmod 777 $(pwd)/data
podman run -d --name mcpgateway --restart=on-failure \
  -p 4444:4444 -v $(pwd)/data:/data \
  -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:////data/mcp.db \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-3

Host networking:

podman run -d --name mcpgateway --network=host \
  -v $(pwd)/data:/data -e DATABASE_URL=sqlite:////data/mcp.db \
  ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:1.0.0-RC-3

---

• .env files - Put all the -e FOO= lines into a file and replace them with --env-file .env. See the provided .env.example for reference.

• Pinned tags - Use an explicit version (e.g. 1.0.0-RC-3) instead of latest for reproducible builds.

• JWT tokens - Generate one in the running container (reads the secret from the container environment):

  docker exec mcpgateway python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
    --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "${JWT_SECRET_KEY}"
  

• Upgrades - Stop, remove, and rerun with the same -v $(pwd)/data:/data mount; your DB and config stay intact.

---

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     http://localhost:4444/health | jq
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     http://localhost:4444/tools | jq
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCPGATEWAY_BEARER_TOKEN" \
     http://localhost:4444/version | jq

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Quick Start: VS Code Dev Container

Clone the repo and open in VS Code—it will detect .devcontainer and prompt to "Reopen in Container". The container includes Python 3.11, Docker CLI, and all project dependencies.

For detailed setup, workflows, and GitHub Codespaces instructions, see Developer Onboarding.

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Installation

make venv install-dev      # create .venv + install deps + build Admin UI
make serve                 # gunicorn on :4444

Rust workspace note:

• Workspace-owned Rust crates live under crates/ and are picked up by the root Cargo.toml via crates/*.
• Run cargo build, cargo test, and cargo check from the repo root to cover the shared workspace.
• make venv install-dev creates the root .venv, which is also reused by the workspace's PyO3/maturin builds.

# UV (faster)
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e '.[dev]'

# pip
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Install the psycopg driver for PostgreSQL:

# Install system dependencies first
# Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libpq-dev
# macOS: brew install libpq

uv pip install 'psycopg[binary]'   # dev (pre-built wheels)
# or: uv pip install 'psycopg[c]'  # production (requires compiler)

Connection URL format:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql+psycopg://user:password@localhost:5432/mcp

Quick Postgres container:

docker run --name mcp-postgres \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=mcp -p 5432:5432 -d postgres

---

Upgrading

For upgrade instructions, migration guides, and rollback procedures, see:

• Upgrade Guide — General upgrade procedures
• MIGRATION.md — Breaking changes and step-by-step upgrade instructions
• CHANGELOG.md — Version history and breaking changes

---

Configuration

⚠️ If any required .env variable is missing or invalid, the gateway will fail fast at startup with a validation error via Pydantic.

Copy the provided .env.example to .env and update the security-sensitive values below.

🔐 Required: Set Before Starting

These variables must be set before the gateway will start. There are no usable defaults — the application fails at startup if these are missing or placeholder values:

Variable	Description	How to generate
JWT_SECRET_KEY	HMAC secret for signing JWTs (32+ chars)	python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets
AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET	Passphrase for encrypting stored credentials	python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets

These variables have insecure defaults and should be changed before production use:

Variable	Description	Default
BASIC_AUTH_USER	Username for HTTP Basic auth	admin
BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD	Password for HTTP Basic auth	required — no default; set via make init-secrets-patch-env
PLATFORM_ADMIN_EMAIL	Email for bootstrap admin user	[email protected]
PLATFORM_ADMIN_PASSWORD	Password for bootstrap admin user	required — set a strong value before first run
PLATFORM_ADMIN_FULL_NAME	Display name for bootstrap admin	Admin User

🔒 Security Defaults (Secure by Default)

These settings are enabled by default for security—only disable for backward compatibility:

Variable	Description	Default
REQUIRE_JTI	Require JTI claim in tokens for revocation support	true
REQUIRE_TOKEN_EXPIRATION	Require exp claim in tokens	true
PUBLIC_REGISTRATION_ENABLED	Allow public user self-registration	false

🛡️ Content Security

Content size limits prevent DoS attacks and ensure system stability:

Variable	Description	Default
CONTENT_MAX_RESOURCE_SIZE	Maximum resource content size (bytes)	102400 (100KB)
CONTENT_MAX_PROMPT_SIZE	Maximum prompt template size (bytes)	10240 (10KB)

Note: Size limits apply only to new create/update operations. Existing content is not retroactively validated.

🌐 UAID Cross-Gateway Routing Security

UAID Security Configuration

Production Requirements:

Cross-gateway UAID routing requires explicit security configuration:

1. Configure Domain Allowlist:

   UAID_ALLOWED_DOMAINS=["gateway1.example.com", "gateway2.example.com"]
   

2. Ensure JWT Trust:

   • Both gateways must trust the same JWT issuer
   • Option A: Shared secret (same JWT_SECRET_KEY on all gateways)
   • Option B: Federated SSO (Google, GitHub, Entra ID)

3. Enable Authentication:

   AUTH_REQUIRED=true
   UAID_FORWARD_AUTH=true
   

Authentication Flow:

Cross-gateway calls forward the user's bearer token via the Authorization header. Remote gateways validate tokens through existing auth middleware, preserving RBAC context.

Security Features:

• ✅ Fail-closed default: Empty allowlist blocks all cross-gateway routing
• ✅ Bearer token forwarding: User authentication preserved across hops
• ✅ Audit trail: Source gateway and user tracked in headers
• ✅ Clear error messages: Misconfigurations caught at startup and runtime

Troubleshooting:

• "UAID_ALLOWED_DOMAINS not configured" error: Add trusted domains to allowlist in .env
• 401/403 from remote gateway: Verify both gateways trust same JWT issuer
• "proceeding without authentication token" warning: Check auth middleware extracts token to request.state.bearer_token

For detailed security architecture, see docs/security/uaid-cross-gateway-auth.md.

⚙️ Project Defaults (Dev Setup)

These values differ from code defaults to provide a working local/dev setup:

Variable	Description	Default
HOST	Bind address	0.0.0.0
MCPGATEWAY_UI_ENABLED	Enable Admin UI dashboard	true
MCPGATEWAY_ADMIN_API_ENABLED	Enable Admin API endpoints	true
DATABASE_URL	SQLAlchemy connection URL	sqlite:///./mcp.db
SECURE_COOKIES	Set false for HTTP (non-HTTPS) dev	false

📚 Full Configuration Reference

For the complete list of 300+ environment variables organized by category (authentication, caching, SSO, observability, etc.), see the Configuration Reference.

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Running

Quick Reference

Command	Server	Port	Database	Use Case
make dev	Uvicorn	8000	SQLite	Development (single instance, auto-reload)
make serve	Gunicorn	4444	SQLite	Production single-node (multi-worker)
make serve-ssl	Gunicorn	4444	SQLite	Production single-node with HTTPS
make compose-up	Docker Compose + Nginx	8080	PostgreSQL + Redis	Full stack (3 replicas, load-balanced)
make compose-sso	Docker Compose + Keycloak	8080 / 8180	PostgreSQL + Redis	Local SSO testing (Keycloak profile)
make testing-up	Docker Compose + Nginx	8080	PostgreSQL + Redis	Testing environment

Development Server (Uvicorn)

make dev                 # Uvicorn on :8000 with auto-reload and SQLite
# or
./run.sh --reload --log debug --workers 2

run.sh is a wrapper around uvicorn that loads .env, supports reload, and passes arguments to the server.

Key flags:

Flag	Purpose	Example
-e, --env FILE	load env-file	--env prod.env
-H, --host	bind address	--host 127.0.0.1
-p, --port	listen port	--port 8080
-w, --workers	gunicorn workers	--workers 4
-r, --reload	auto-reload	--reload

Production Server (Gunicorn)

make serve               # Gunicorn on :4444 with multiple workers
make serve-ssl           # Gunicorn behind HTTPS on :4444 (uses ./certs)

Docker Compose (Full Stack)

make compose-up          # Start full stack: PostgreSQL, Redis, 3 gateway replicas, Nginx on :8080
make compose-sso         # Start SSO stack with Keycloak on :8180
make sso-test-login      # Run SSO smoke checks (providers + login URL + test users)
make compose-logs        # Tail logs from all services
make compose-down        # Stop the stack

Manual (Uvicorn)

uvicorn mcpgateway.main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4444 --workers 4

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Cloud Deployment

ContextForge can be deployed to any major cloud platform:

Platform	Guide
AWS	ECS/EKS Deployment
Azure	AKS Deployment
Google Cloud	Cloud Run
IBM Cloud	Code Engine
Kubernetes	Helm Charts
OpenShift	OpenShift Deployment

For comprehensive deployment guides, see Deployment Documentation.

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API Reference

Interactive API documentation is available when the server is running:

• Swagger UI — Try API calls directly in your browser
• ReDoc — Browse the complete endpoint reference

Quick Authentication:

# Read JWT_SECRET_KEY from your .env (it must already contain a real secret)
export JWT_SECRET_KEY=$(grep '^JWT_SECRET_KEY=' .env | cut -d= -f2)

# Generate a JWT token
export TOKEN=$(python3 -m mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token \
  --username [email protected] --exp 10080 --secret "$JWT_SECRET_KEY")

# Test API access
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" http://localhost:4444/health

For comprehensive curl examples covering all endpoints, see the API Usage Guide.

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Testing

make test            # Run unit tests
make lint            # Run all linters
make doctest         # Run doctests
make coverage        # Generate coverage report

See Doctest Coverage Guide for documentation testing details.

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Project Structure

mcpgateway/          # Core FastAPI application
├── main.py          # Entry point
├── config.py        # Pydantic Settings configuration
├── db.py            # SQLAlchemy ORM models
├── schemas.py       # Pydantic validation schemas
├── services/        # Business logic layer (50+ services)
├── routers/         # HTTP endpoint definitions
├── middleware/      # Cross-cutting concerns
└── transports/      # SSE, WebSocket, stdio, streamable HTTP

tests/               # Test suite (7,000+ tests)
docs/docs/           # Full documentation (MkDocs)
charts/              # Kubernetes/Helm charts
plugins/             # Plugin framework and implementations

Security: Never run untrusted MCP servers directly on your local filesystem. Always use a sandbox, container, or microVM (e.g. gVisor, Firecracker) with restricted capabilities. Exercise caution when registering any remote MCP server, including servers from public catalogs — perform your own security evaluation before granting access to your gateway.

For complete structure, see CONTRIBUTING.md or run tree -L 2.

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Development

make dev             # Dev server with auto-reload (:8000)
make test            # Run test suite
make lint            # Run all linters
make coverage        # Generate coverage report

Run make to see all available targets.

For development workflows, see:

• Developer Workstation Setup
• Building & Packaging

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Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions:

Issue	Quick Fix
docker compose up fails with cryptography or dependency resolution error	The local build requires a CI-produced wheel closure. Run docker pull ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest && echo 'IMAGE_LOCAL=ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest' >> .env then retry
docker compose up fails with SecurityConfigurationError: jwt_secret_key	.env is missing or has __REPLACE_ME__ placeholders. Run cp .env.example .env && python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets --patch-env .env
docker compose up fails — mcpgateway/nginx-cache pull access denied	nginx image must be built locally: docker compose build nginx
make dev — nothing on port 8000	Check terminal for SecurityConfigurationError — run make ensure-secrets then retry. On WSL2 use http://127.0.0.1:8000 not localhost
SQLite "disk I/O error" on macOS	Avoid iCloud-synced directories; use ~/mcp-context-forge/data
Port 4444 not accessible on WSL2	Configure WSL integration in Docker Desktop
Gateway exits immediately	Run cp .env.example .env && python3 -m mcpgateway.scripts.init_secrets --patch-env .env
ModuleNotFoundError	Run make install-dev

For detailed troubleshooting guides, see Troubleshooting Documentation.

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Contributing

1. Fork the repo, create a feature branch.
2. Run make lint and fix any issues.
3. Keep make test green.
4. Open a PR with signed commits (git commit -s).

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full guidelines and Issue Guide #2502 for how to file bugs, request features, and find issues to work on.

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Changelog

A complete changelog can be found here: CHANGELOG.md

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see LICENSE

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