ARC-1 — SAP ADT MCP Server

ARC-1 (pronounced arc one [ɑːrk wʌn]) — Enterprise-ready MCP server for SAP ABAP systems. Secure by default, deployable to BTP or on-premise, and hardened with large unit/integration/E2E test coverage.

ARC-1 connects AI assistants (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Copilot Studio, and any MCP client) to SAP systems via the ADT REST API. It ships as an npm package and Docker image.

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Why ARC-1?

Built for organizations that need AI-assisted SAP development with guardrails. Inspired by the pioneering work of abap-adt-api, mcp-abap-adt, and vibing-steampunk — ARC-1 adds what's needed to run in production:

Security & Admin Controls

• Safe by default — read-only, no free SQL, no table preview, no transport writes, no Git writes. Enable each capability with explicit SAP_ALLOW_* flags
• Action deny list — block specific tool actions with SAP_DENY_ACTIONS (for example SAPWrite.delete), without exposing low-level operation codes to admins
• Package restrictions — limit AI write operations (create, update, delete) to specific packages with wildcards (--allowed-packages "Z*,$TMP"). Read operations are not restricted by package — use SAP's native authorization for read-level access control
• Data access control (off by default) — SAPRead(type=TABLE_CONTENTS) and SAPQuery are gated behind explicit env vars (SAP_ALLOW_DATA_PREVIEW=true, SAP_ALLOW_FREE_SQL=true). These capabilities can expose application data or run ad-hoc SQL, so they are intentionally separated from the default development-tooling surface. They can be enabled for governed use cases, but should be reviewed against the SAP API Policy, your SAP agreement, and internal data-governance rules
• Experimental data-source emergency brake — approved data/SQL deployments can set SAP_BLOCKED_DATA_SOURCES=USR02,PA0002. ARC-1 then parses each SQL request and resolves active CDS plus replacement-object lineage before execution, denying direct or transitive exact-name matches and failing closed when lineage is unsupported or cannot be proven. The empty default adds no metadata calls. This denylist is defense in depth, not a production allowlist or replacement for SAP authorization/CDS DCL; see Authorization & Roles.
• Transport safety — transport reads are available for review, while transport mutations require both --allow-writes and --allow-transport-writes. Update/delete operations auto-use the lock correction number when no explicit transport is provided
• Git workflow safety — Git operations are disabled by default. Enable explicitly with --allow-git-writes / SAP_ALLOW_GIT_WRITES=true
• API-key profiles — multi-key HTTP deployments can assign viewer, viewer-data, viewer-sql, developer, developer-data, developer-sql, or admin per key
• Writes restricted to $TMP when enabled — only local/throwaway objects; writing to transportable packages requires explicit --allowed-packages
• HTTP security headers (helmet) on by default — HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, CORP, X-Content-Type-Options. COOP is deliberately not set so popup-based OAuth flows (Copilot Studio) keep working. No flag to disable.
• Opt-in CORS for browser MCP clients — ARC1_ALLOWED_ORIGINS (comma-separated, exact match). Off by default; native MCP clients don't need it
• Layered rate limiting — three layers out of the box: per-IP OAuth and shared MCP HTTP edge limits (Layer 1; MCP inherits the historical derived cap unless ARC1_MCP_HTTP_RATE_LIMIT overrides it), per-user MCP quota (Layer 2, off by default — multi-user deployments opt in via ARC1_RATE_LIMIT=60), and a server-wide SAP-bound semaphore (Layer 3, default 10, on). Honors Retry-After on 429/503 from SAP / BTP gateways. See the Rate Limiting Guide
• Supply-chain security — Dependabot (npm + GitHub Actions + Docker, weekly + same-day security advisories), npm audit --audit-level=high PR gate, GitHub Dependency Review on every PR, CodeQL SAST, Trivy container scanning (scheduled multi-architecture HIGH/CRITICAL gate plus advisory release/dev scans), all third-party GitHub Actions pinned to commit SHA, SECURITY.md policy with severity-tiered SLAs. Image and npm package both ship with provenance attestations, and the release workflow publishes a best-effort CycloneDX SBOM for the production npm dependency graph. See the security guide §13

Authentication

• API key — simple Bearer token for internal deployments
• OIDC / JWT — Entra ID, Keycloak, or any OpenID Connect provider
• OAuth 2.0 — local browser-based login for BTP ABAP Environment service-key development
• XSUAA — SAP BTP native auth with automatic token proxy for MCP clients
• Per-user SAP identity — BTP Destination Service forwards the MCP user to SAP: Cloud Connector principal propagation for on-premise SAP, or OAuth2UserTokenExchange for BTP ABAP Environment

BTP Cloud Foundry Deployment

Deploy ARC-1 as a Cloud Foundry app on SAP BTP with full platform integration:

• Destination Service — connect to SAP systems via managed destinations
• Experimental multi-target mode — the default-off, mutation-free BTP mode discovers destinations marked arc1.enabled=true and exposes pinned SID/client plus aggregate endpoints (setup, administration)
• Cloud Connector — reach on-premise systems through the connectivity proxy
• Per-user destinations — user identity forwarded end-to-end via X.509 certificates for on-premise SAP, or exchanged for an ABAP bearer token for BTP ABAP Environment
• XSUAA OAuth proxy — MCP clients authenticate via standard OAuth, ARC-1 handles the BTP token exchange
• Audit logging — structured events to stderr, file, or BTP Audit Log Service

Token Efficiency

• 12 intent-based tools instead of 200+ individual tools — keeps tool selection simple, with the schema payload guarded by CI budgets and a hyperfocused 1-tool mode for tight context windows
• Method-level read/edit — read or update a single class method, not the whole source (up to 20x fewer tokens)
• Focused source and dependency context — use targeted SAPRead for exact implementation behavior. For business purpose, reviews or test design, start with SAPContext(action="deps", type=..., name=...) for available Knowledge Transfer Documents (SKTD/KTD) and dependency contracts, then compare requirements with source. Without documented requirements, intent is unverified.

Built-in Object Caching

• Server-validated source caching — every SAP object read is cached in memory (stdio) or SQLite (http-streamable). Repeated reads use If-None-Match/ETag conditional GET, so unchanged objects return from cache after SAP confirms 304 Not Modified.
• Dependency parsing reuse — unchanged, authorized source can reuse parsed dependencies and contracts in memory. Aggregate dependency graphs are not cached; SAP authorization and source validation still apply.
• KTD-aware context — Knowledge Transfer Documents use the source cache and are revalidated when composed into SAPContext(action="deps").
• Live where-used — SAPContext(action="usages") and CDS impact analysis query SAP's current repository index with the caller's identity; no startup repository scan is required.
• Active/inactive source views — SAPRead accepts version="active" | "inactive" | "auto" and warns when the active source has an unactivated draft.
• Write invalidation — when SAPWrite or SAPActivate mutates an object, both active and inactive source cache entries are dropped; next read revalidates or fetches fresh source.

See docs/caching.md for full documentation.

Testing