OWASP ZAP MCP Server

dotnet-zap-mcp

MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for OWASP ZAP. Enables AI agents (Claude, GitHub Copilot, etc.) to drive ZAP vulnerability scanning via MCP.

Features

• 45 MCP tools for controlling OWASP ZAP (scanning, alerts, spider, ajax spider, context, authentication, reports, etc.)
• Built-in Docker Compose management (start/stop ZAP with a single tool call)
• Zero-config setup: auto-generates API keys and extracts Docker assets
• Works with any MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, VS Code, etc.)

Installation

dotnet tool install -g dotnet-zap-mcp

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• Docker (Docker Engine or Docker Desktop) with docker compose support (for built-in ZAP container management)

Configuration

Zero-config (recommended)

No configuration needed. The agent calls DockerComposeUp which automatically:

1. Extracts Docker assets to ~/.zap-mcp/docker/
2. Generates a random API key
3. Starts the ZAP container on localhost:8090
4. Waits for ZAP to become healthy

Data persistence

The ZAP container uses two Docker named volumes:

On the first launch, the template config.xml is copied into zap-home. On subsequent launches, only the API key is updated — any changes made through ZAP (contexts, authentication settings, scan policies, etc.) are preserved.

The zap-data volume contains:

• reports/ — generated scan reports
• sessions/ — saved ZAP sessions
• contexts/ — exported context files

Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zap": {
      "command": "zap-mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code (Copilot)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "zap": {
      "command": "zap-mcp"
    }
  }
}

With existing ZAP instance

If you already have a ZAP instance running, pass connection details via environment variables:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zap": {
      "command": "zap-mcp",
      "env": {
        "ZAP_BASE_URL": "http://localhost:8090",
        "ZAP_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

Docker Management

ZAP Core

Spider

Active Scan

Passive Scan

Alerts

Reports

Context Management

Authentication

Users

Forced User

Ajax Spider

Typical Workflow

1. Agent calls DockerComposeUp to start ZAP
2. Configure browser/Playwright to use ZAP as proxy (http://127.0.0.1:8090)
3. Browse the target application through the proxy
4. Agent calls StartSpider to crawl the application, then GetSpiderStatus to monitor progress
5. Agent calls GetPassiveScanStatus to wait for passive scan completion
6. Agent calls StartActiveScan on key pages, then GetActiveScanStatus to monitor progress
7. Agent calls GetAlertsSummary and GetAlerts to retrieve vulnerability findings
8. Agent calls GetHtmlReport or GetJsonReport to generate a scan report
9. Agent calls DockerComposeDown when done

Note: ZAP settings (contexts, authentication, scan policies) are persisted in the zap-home Docker volume. You can stop and restart the container without losing configuration.

Try It Out (with the included vulnerable app)

This repository includes an intentionally vulnerable web application for trying out ZAP scanning. The app contains common vulnerabilities (XSS, SQL Injection, CSRF, Open Redirect) so ZAP can detect real findings.

Setup

# Start ZAP and the vulnerable target app
docker compose -f tests/docker/docker-compose.test.yml up -d --build

# Wait until both containers are healthy
docker compose -f tests/docker/docker-compose.test.yml ps

Then configure your MCP client to connect to this ZAP instance:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zap": {
      "command": "zap-mcp",
      "env": {
        "ZAP_BASE_URL": "http://localhost:8090",
        "ZAP_API_KEY": "test-api-key-for-ci"
      }
    }
  }
}

The vulnerable app is accessible at http://target from within the Docker network (used by ZAP), and at http://localhost:8080 from your host machine.

Example 1: Quick Scan

Prompt to agent:

Scan http://target for vulnerabilities. Run a spider crawl, wait for the passive scan to finish, then show me the alert summary and generate an HTML report.

Expected tool flow:

GetVersion          → Verify ZAP connectivity
StartSpider         → url: "http://target"
GetSpiderStatus     → Poll until 100%
GetPassiveScanStatus → Poll until 0 records remaining
GetAlertsSummary    → baseUrl: "http://target"
GetAlerts           → baseUrl: "http://target"
GetHtmlReport       → Generate report