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Deployment

Deployment Options

mattermost-mcp supports local stdio, a loopback-only development listener, a least-privilege stdio container, and a remote authenticated HTTPS boundary. Provider endpoint, credential, selector, identity, and trust material are supplied at runtime through AgentConfig; none is stored in this repository.

Installed stdio process

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mattermost": {
      "command": "mattermost-mcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": {"MCP_TOOL_MODE": "intent"}
    }
  }
}

Loopback development listener

mattermost-mcp --transport streamable-http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

Do not expose this listener beyond loopback. Network deployments require direct TLS or an explicitly trusted TLS-terminating ingress, configured authentication, exact MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS, and an exact trusted-proxy CIDR policy.

Least-privilege local container

docker run -i --rm \
  --read-only \
  --cap-drop=ALL \
  --security-opt=no-new-privileges \
  --pids-limit=256 \
  --tmpfs /tmp:rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=64m \
  -e TRANSPORT=stdio \
  registry.example.invalid/mattermost-mcp@sha256:<digest> mattermost-mcp

The operator projects the selected AgentConfig profile into the process at runtime; the image remains immutable and contains no environment connection profile.

Remote authenticated HTTPS endpoint

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mattermost": {"url": "https://service.example.invalid/mcp"}
  }
}

Store the real remote URL, outbound identity reference, and TLS-profile reference in AgentConfig, not in MCP client JSON or documentation.

This page covers running mattermost-mcp as a long-lived server: the transports, a Docker Compose stack, the companion agent server, putting it behind a Caddy reverse proxy, and giving it a DNS name with Technitium. To provision the Mattermost server it connects to, see Backing Platform.

mattermost-mcp ships both an MCP server (console script mattermost-mcp) and a Pydantic-AI agent server (console script mattermost-agent). The MCP server is a typed, deterministic tool surface a policy router / agent calls; the agent server consumes that tool surface and can serve a conversational web UI.

Run the MCP server

The transport is selected with --transport (or the TRANSPORT env var):

mattermost-mcp
For IDE / desktop MCP clients that launch the server as a subprocess.

mattermost-mcp --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000
A network server with a /health endpoint and /mcp route.

mattermost-mcp --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

Health check (HTTP transports):

curl -s http://localhost:8000/health        # {"status":"OK"}

Configuration (environment)

mattermost-mcp is configured entirely from the environment. The required set:

Var Default Meaning
MATTERMOST_URL http://localhost:8065 Mattermost Server v4 API endpoint URL
MATTERMOST_TOKEN (none) Personal Access Token or Bot Token

Plus HOST / PORT / TRANSPORT for HTTP transports. The full template, ready to copy to .env, is documented in .env.example. The connector remains inactive when MATTERMOST_TOKEN is absent.

Docker Compose

The repo ships docker/mcp.compose.yml. It reads a sibling .env and publishes the HTTP server on :8000:

services:
  mattermost-mcp:
    image: example/mattermost-mcp@sha256:<digest>
    container_name: mattermost-mcp
    hostname: mattermost-mcp
    restart: always
    env_file:
      - ../.env
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=8000
      - TRANSPORT=streamable-http
      - MATTERMOST_URL
      - MATTERMOST_TOKEN
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "python3", "-c", "import urllib.request; urllib.request.urlopen('http://localhost:8000/health')"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3

cp .env.example .env          # then edit MATTERMOST_* values
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml up -d
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml logs -f

Agent server

mattermost-mcp also ships a Pydantic-AI agent (console script mattermost-agent) that connects to the running MCP server over HTTP and optionally serves a web UI. The repo provides docker/agent.compose.yml, which runs the MCP server and the agent together: the agent reaches the MCP server by container name via MCP_URL and publishes its own web UI on :9035.

services:
  mattermost-mcp-mcp:
    image: example/mattermost-mcp@sha256:<digest>
    container_name: mattermost-mcp-mcp
    hostname: mattermost-mcp-mcp
    restart: always
    env_file:
      - ../.env
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=8000
      - TRANSPORT=streamable-http
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"

  mattermost-mcp-agent:
    image: example/mattermost-mcp@sha256:<digest>
    container_name: mattermost-mcp-agent
    hostname: mattermost-mcp-agent
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - mattermost-mcp-mcp
    env_file:
      - ../.env
    command: [ "mattermost-agent" ]
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=9035
      - MCP_URL=http://mattermost-mcp-mcp:8000/mcp
      - PROVIDER=${PROVIDER:-openai}
      - MODEL_ID=${MODEL_ID:-gpt-4o}
      - ENABLE_WEB_UI=True
    ports:
      - "9035:9035"

docker compose -f docker/agent.compose.yml up -d
curl -s http://localhost:9035/health        # agent health

Run the agent directly against an existing MCP server:

mattermost-agent --mcp-url http://localhost:8000/mcp --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9035 --web

Behind a Caddy reverse proxy

Expose the HTTP server on a hostname with automatic TLS. Add to your Caddyfile:

# Internal (self-signed) — homelab .example.invalid zone
mattermost-mcp.example.invalid {
    tls internal
    reverse_proxy mattermost-mcp:8000
}

# Public — automatic Let's Encrypt
mattermost-mcp.example.com {
    reverse_proxy mattermost-mcp:8000
}

Reload Caddy:

docker compose -f services/caddy/compose.yml exec caddy caddy reload --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

DNS with Technitium

Point the hostname at the host running Caddy. Via the Technitium API:

curl -s "http://technitium.example.invalid:5380/api/zones/records/add" \
  --data-urlencode "token=$TECHNITIUM_DNS_TOKEN" \
  --data-urlencode "domain=mattermost-mcp.example.invalid" \
  --data-urlencode "zone=arpa" \
  --data-urlencode "type=A" \
  --data-urlencode "ipAddress=192.0.2.10" \
  --data-urlencode "ttl=3600"

…or add an A record mattermost-mcp.example.invalid → <caddy-host-ip> in the Technitium web console (http://technitium.example.invalid:5380). The ecosystem technitium-dns-mcp automates this as a tool.

Register with an MCP client

Add to your client's mcp_config.json (multiplexer nickname mm):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mattermost-mcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "mattermost-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "MATTERMOST_URL": "http://your-mattermost:8065",
        "MATTERMOST_TOKEN": "your_personal_access_token"
      }
    }
  }
}

For a remote HTTP server, point the client at http://mattermost-mcp.example.invalid/mcp instead.