Deployment

Deployment Options

plane-agent 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": {
    "plane": {
      "command": "plane-mcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": {"MCP_TOOL_MODE": "intent"}
    }
  }
}

Loopback development listener

plane-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/plane-agent@sha256:<digest> plane-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": {
    "plane": {"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 plane-agent as a long-lived service: the transports, the optional A2A agent server, a Docker Compose stack, putting it behind a Caddy reverse proxy, and giving it a DNS name with Technitium. To provision the Plane platform it connects to, see Backing Platform.

plane-agent ships an MCP server (console script plane-mcp) and a separate A2A agent server (console script plane-agent). The MCP server is the typed, deterministic tool surface; the agent server is a Pydantic-AI agent that connects to the MCP server over MCP_URL and exposes the tools conversationally.

Run the MCP server

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

stdio (default)streamable-httpsse

plane-mcp

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

plane-mcp --transport streamable-http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

A network server with a /health endpoint and /mcp route.

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

Health check (HTTP transports):

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

Configuration (environment)

plane-agent is configured entirely from the environment. The required set:

Var	Default	Meaning
PLANE_BASE_URL	https://api.plane.so	Plane API base URL
PLANE_API_KEY	(unset)	Plane personal API key — required
PLANE_WORKSPACE_SLUG	(unset)	Target workspace slug — required
HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address (HTTP transports)
PORT	8000	Bind port (HTTP transports)
TRANSPORT	stdio	stdio, streamable-http, or sse

Each Plane resource domain has its own tool toggle (default True) so you can register only the surface you need: PROJECTSTOOL, WORK_ITEMSTOOL, CYCLESTOOL, EPICSTOOL, MILESTONESTOOL, MODULESTOOL, STATESTOOL, USERSTOOL, WORKSPACESTOOL, INITIATIVESTOOL, INTAKETOOL, LABELSTOOL, PAGESTOOL.

The full set — including telemetry (OTEL), access governance (Eunomia), and the agent settings below — is documented in .env.example. Copy it to .env and fill in only what you use. The agent remains inactive when credentials are absent.

Backing Service

plane-agent connects to a Plane workspace. Plane is available both as a managed SaaS (Plane Cloud) and as a self-hostable platform. When using Plane Cloud only the connection configuration above is required; to deploy a local Plane instance, see Backing Platform.

Docker Compose

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

services:
  plane-agent-mcp:
    image: example/plane-agent@sha256:<digest>
    container_name: plane-agent-mcp
    hostname: plane-agent-mcp
    restart: always
    env_file:
      - ../.env
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=8000
      - TRANSPORT=streamable-http
    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 PLANE_* values
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml up -d
docker compose -f docker/mcp.compose.yml logs -f

Run the agent server

When server_type is mcp+agent, the A2A agent server is exposed through the plane-agent console script and the docker/agent.compose.yml stack. The agent connects to the MCP server over MCP_URL and listens on port 9004:

# Locally — point the agent at a running MCP server
export MCP_URL=http://localhost:8000/mcp
export MODEL_ID=gpt-4o
export LLM_API_KEY=your_model_api_key
plane-agent --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9004

The agent.compose.yml stack runs both services together — the MCP server on :8000 and the agent on :9004, wired by container name:

services:
  plane-agent-mcp:
    image: example/plane-agent@sha256:<digest>
    hostname: plane-agent-mcp
    env_file: [ ../.env ]
    environment:
      - TRANSPORT=streamable-http
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=8000
    ports: ["8000:8000"]

  plane-agent-agent:
    image: example/plane-agent@sha256:<digest>
    depends_on: [ plane-agent-mcp ]
    command: [ "plane-agent" ]
    env_file: [ ../.env ]
    environment:
      - HOST=0.0.0.0
      - PORT=9004
      - MCP_URL=http://plane-agent-mcp:8000/mcp
      - MODEL_ID=${MODEL_ID:-gpt-4o}
    ports: ["9004:9004"]

docker compose -f docker/agent.compose.yml up -d

Setting	Default	Meaning
MCP_URL	http://localhost:8000/mcp	MCP server the agent connects to
MODEL_ID	gpt-4o	Model the agent reasons with
LLM_API_KEY	(unset)	Credential for the model provider
LLM_BASE_URL	(unset)	Optional custom model endpoint
PORT	9004	Agent server port

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
plane-agent.example.invalid {
    tls internal
    reverse_proxy plane-agent-mcp:8000
}

# Public — automatic Let's Encrypt
plane-agent.example.com {
    reverse_proxy plane-agent-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=plane-agent.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 plane-agent.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:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "plane-agent": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "plane-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PLANE_BASE_URL": "https://api.plane.so",
        "PLANE_API_KEY": "your_plane_api_key",
        "PLANE_WORKSPACE_SLUG": "your-workspace"
      }
    }
  }
}

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