IBM Code Engine MCP Server

MCP server for IBM Code Engine — build, push, and deploy containers from Cursor, Copilot, Claude, and Cline using natural language.

Current release: v1.5.0 — Projects & Resources Tree View in the sidebar (apps, jobs, builds, secrets, config maps with inline actions), Activity sidebar view, plus 8 new operational tools (events, build-run logs, app restart, job resubmit/cancel, project quotas).

Search terms: code-engine-mcp · ibm-code-engine · ibm-cloud · ibm-container-registry · mcp-server · model-context-protocol · cursor · github-copilot · claude-desktop · cline · docker · podman · serverless · container-deployment · typescript · npx · ai-agents · devops · cloud-native · watsonx-orchestrate

Author: Markus van Kempen | markus.van.kempen@gmail.com · markusvankempen.github.io No bug too small, no syntax too weird.

How It Works

flowchart TD
    A([AI Assistant\nCopilot / Claude / Cline / Bob]) -->|MCP JSON-RPC| B[Code Engine MCP Server]

    B --> C{Tool Category}

    C -->|Container Tools| D[Docker / Podman]
    C -->|Registry Tools| E[IBM Container Registry\nus.icr.io]
    C -->|Code Engine Tools| F[IBM Code Engine\nREST API]
    C -->|Procedures| G[Multi-step Workflows]

    D -->|build / push / validate| E
    E -->|image reference| F

    G -->|proc_build_push_deploy| D
    G -->|proc_apply_manifest| F

    F --> H[(Projects\nApps\nBuilds\nJobs\nSecrets\nDomains)]

    H -->|ready| I([Live App\nhttps://app.region.codeengine.appdomain.cloud])

    style A fill:#1261FE,color:#fff
    style B fill:#0f3460,color:#fff
    style G fill:#7b2d8b,color:#fff
    style I fill:#198038,color:#fff

✨ What You Get

• Container workflow tools for Docker or Podman
• IBM Container Registry (ICR) tools — list namespaces, list images, delete images
• IBM Code Engine project and application management tools
• MCP-ready setup for GitHub Copilot, Cline, Bob, Claude Desktop, and the optional VS Code extension in vscode-extension/
• MCP Activity Dashboard — live timeline of tool calls, session grouping, deploy outcome highlights, and a Deployments inventory tab (extension or dev repo)
• Live activity logging — optional JSONL event stream for every MCP tool call (MCP_ACTIVITY_* env vars)
• A simple local development and troubleshooting workflow

🚀 Quick Start

# 1) Install dependencies
npm install

# 2) Build the server
npm run build

# 3) Run once to verify
node build/index.js

Then configure your MCP client using one of the examples in the Configuration section below.

🤖 The Agentic Experience (No Docker/Code Engine Lingo Needed)

The true power of this MCP server is that you don't need to know Docker or Code Engine commands. You can simply state your goal, and the LLM will discover the environment, run the pipeline, and fix issues autonomously.

Here is an example interaction from a real session:

User:

"I have an app in the developer-splash folder. Deploy it to my Code Engine project."

Assistant's Autonomous Thought Process:

1. Discovery: "Let me check what projects and namespaces exist... Found project markus-app-v2-toronto and namespace mvk-code-engine."
2. Prerequisites: "No pull secret in this project yet. I'll get the API key from the .env file and create the secret icr-pull-secret."
3. Execution: "Now I'll run the full pipeline: build → push → deploy → wait."
4. Validation: "It's deployed but stuck at 'deploying'. Let me check the logs... The container is running but the readiness probe is failing."
5. Self-Correction: "Ah, the sed pattern in the Dockerfile didn't match nginx alpine's default config format for port 80. I'll fix the Dockerfile with a regex-safe sed and rebuild."
6. Completion: "App is live! 🎉 Status: ready."

Assistant Response to User:

"Your app is deployed and live at: https://developer-splash.29m5mrru3s3n.ca-tor.codeengine.appdomain.cloud. I had to fix a minor port configuration issue in your Dockerfile, but it is successfully running now!"

With this MCP server, the AI acts as an expert DevOps engineer pairing with you.

📊 MCP Activity Dashboard (v1.4.0)

See what your AI assistant is doing in real time — tool calls, idle gaps between steps, deploy outcomes, and live app URLs.

flowchart LR
    A[MCP tool call] -->|MCP_ACTIVITY_ENABLED| B[events.jsonl]
    B --> C{Dashboard}
    C -->|VS Code extension| D[Activity tab]
    C -->|Browser| E[localhost:8767]
    D --> F[Deployments tab\ninventory + actions]

Enable activity logging

Add to your MCP client env (Cursor .cursor/mcp.json, VS Code mcp.json, etc.):

"MCP_ACTIVITY_ENABLED": "true",
"MCP_ACTIVITY_EVENTS_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/code-engine-mcp-server/dashboard/activity/live/events.jsonl",
"MCP_ACTIVITY_SESSION_ID": "session:my-chat-001",
"MCP_ACTIVITY_CHAT_LABEL": "Deploy Star Wars splash"

Restart the MCP server after changing env. Events append to events.jsonl on every tool start/finish — including input summaries, pipeline sub-steps (proc_build_push_deploy), result highlights, and optional HTTP smoke-test labels.

See .env.example for all MCP_ACTIVITY_* variables.

Open the dashboard

The Activity tab shows a session timeline with tool duration, idle gaps, and a task-outcome banner (status, image, live URL). The Deployments tab lists projects and apps from Code Engine and supports get-details, redeploy, and delete via MCP tools.

Example chat prompt:

"I have a Star Wars splash page in examples/starwars-splash. Deploy it to Code Engine using only MCP tools — build for linux/amd64, push to my ICR namespace, and deploy to my Code Engine project. Show me the live URL when ready."

Open the Activity Dashboard while the assistant runs to watch proc_build_push_deploy progress step by step.

Deploy Your First App

This walks through deploying the included Star Wars splash page example — a static nginx container — entirely through the MCP server.

Apple Silicon users: always build with --platform linux/amd64. Code Engine runs amd64 only.

Step 1 — Build and push the image

cd examples/starwars-splash
podman build --platform linux/amd64 -t us.icr.io/<your-namespace>/starwars-splash:v1.0.0 .
podman push us.icr.io/<your-namespace>/starwars-splash:v1.0.0

Or ask your assistant:

Build examples/starwars-splash as us.icr.io/my-namespace/starwars-splash:v1.0.0 for linux/amd64 and push it

MCP response — build_container_image:

{
  "success": true,
  "command": "podman build --platform linux/amd64 -t us.icr.io/my-namespace/starwars-splash:v1.0.0 ...",
  "build_output": "STEP 1/5: FROM nginx:alpine\nSTEP 2/5: COPY index.html /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html\nSTEP 3/5: RUN sed -i 's/listen  80;/listen 8080;/g' /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf\nSTEP 4/5: EXPOSE 8080\nSTEP 5/5: CMD [\"nginx\", \"-g\", \"daemon off;\"]\nSuccessfully tagged us.icr.io/my-namespace/starwars-splash:v1.0.0"
}

Note: Container runtimes (Podman/Docker) write build progress to stderr. The build_output field combines stdout and stderr so you see the full build log.

MCP response — push_container_image:

{
  "success": true,
  "command": "podman push us.icr.io/my-namespace/starwars-splash:v1.0.0",
  "output": "Getting image source signatures\nCopying blobs...\nWriting manifest to image destination"
}

Step 2 — Create a registry pull secret