Orchestration Cluster MCP Server

Enable AI agents and LLM-powered applications to interact with Camunda 8 through the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

About

The Orchestration Cluster MCP Server is an API surface of the Orchestration Cluster that exposes Camunda's operational capabilities through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It enables AI agents and LLM-powered applications to discover and invoke Camunda tools using a standardized interface, without custom API integration code.

Like the Orchestration Cluster API, the MCP server is built into the Orchestration Cluster and shares the same authentication and authorization model. It can be enabled independently.

note

This is the Orchestration Cluster MCP Server. If you are looking to connect an AI agent running in a BPMN process to an external MCP server, see the MCP Client connector.

Why use the Orchestration Cluster MCP Server

Building AI-powered applications that interact with Camunda traditionally requires writing custom client code to call REST APIs, handle authentication, parse responses, and format data for AI consumption. The MCP server removes this by providing:

• Standardized access: AI agents discover and invoke Camunda capabilities through the MCP protocol, without bespoke integration code.
• Tool discovery: MCP clients automatically discover available tools and their schemas at runtime.
• Broad compatibility: Works with any MCP-compliant client, including VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Claude Code, Cursor, and custom AI applications.
• Consistent security: Inherits the same authentication and authorization model as the REST API.

Authentication

The MCP server uses the same authentication model as the Orchestration Cluster REST API. OAuth tokens obtained for the REST API work without changes.

For SaaS environments:

1. Create API client credentials in the Camunda Console.
2. Use the generated Client ID, Client secret, OAuth token endpoint, and audience to obtain an access token via the OAuth 2.0 client credentials flow.
3. Pass the token in the Authorization: Bearer <token> header, or use c8ctl mcp-proxy to handle this automatically.

For the full authentication reference, including Self-Managed OIDC and basic authentication setup, see Authentication.

Transport

The MCP server uses the Streamable HTTP transport and is served at the /mcp/cluster endpoint. It is stateless and no session management is required.

Get started

important

The MCP server is available from Camunda 8.9 onwards.

If you have a local Orchestration Cluster running with Camunda 8 Run, the MCP server is enabled by default. Connect any MCP client using this configuration:

{
  "servers": {
    "camunda": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp/cluster"
    }
  }
}

For production environments and other deployment types, the MCP server must be explicitly enabled on your cluster before use. See Enable and connect for more details.

Available capabilities

The MCP server exposes tools across the following domains:

Domain	Capabilities
Cluster	Check cluster health and retrieve topology information.
Incidents	Search, retrieve, and resolve incidents.
Process definitions	Search process definitions and retrieve BPMN XML.
Process instances	Search, retrieve, and create process instances.
User tasks	Search, retrieve, and assign user tasks. Search task variables.
Variables	Search and retrieve variables.

For the full list of available tools, see Available tools.