A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for managing Kubernetes clusters from MCP-compatible clients like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Continue.
Overview
Kai exposes Kubernetes operations as MCP tools, letting an LLM client manage your cluster through natural language — workloads, networking, config, storage, RBAC, custom resources, and raw manifests.
An MCP Server for Kubernetes
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Features
Core Workloads
Pods - Create, list, get, delete, and stream logs
Deployments - Create, list, describe, and update
Jobs - Batch workload management (create, get, list, delete)
API Discovery - API resource exploration (list_api_resources)
Requirements
The server connects to your current kubectl context by default. Ensure you have access to a Kubernetes cluster configured for kubectl (e.g., minikube, Rancher Desktop, kind, EKS, GKE, AKS).
Installation
go install github.com/basebandit/kai/cmd/kai@latest
Container image
A multi-arch image (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) is published on Docker Hub:
docker pull cyclon/kai:v1.0.0
docker run --rm cyclon/kai:v1.0.0 -version
CLI Options
kai [options]
Options:
-kubeconfig string Path to kubeconfig file (default "~/.kube/config")
-context string Name for the loaded context (default "local")
-in-cluster Use in-cluster config (when running inside a pod)
-transport string stdio (default), streamable-http, or sse-legacy
-sse-addr string HTTP listen address for streamable-http/sse-legacy (default ":8080")
-tls-cert string Path to TLS certificate (enables HTTPS)
-tls-key string Path to TLS private key (enables HTTPS)
-request-timeout duration Timeout for Kubernetes API requests (default 30s)
-metrics Expose Prometheus metrics at /metrics (default true)
-log-format string json (default) or text
-log-level string debug, info, warn, error (default "info")
-version Show version information
Logs are written to stderr in structured JSON format by default, making them easy to parse:
For non-stdio clients, run the streamable HTTP transport:
kai -transport=streamable-http -sse-addr=:8080
The MCP endpoint is http://localhost:8080/mcp. Health probes are at /healthz
and /readyz, and Prometheus metrics at /metrics. The legacy SSE transport
(-transport=sse-legacy, endpoint /sse) still works but is deprecated.
Custom Kubeconfig
By default, Kai uses ~/.kube/config. You can specify a different kubeconfig:
kai -kubeconfig=/path/to/custom/kubeconfig -context=my-cluster
Running Inside a Kubernetes Cluster
When deploying Kai inside a Kubernetes cluster, use the -in-cluster flag to automatically use the pod's service account credentials:
kai -in-cluster -transport=streamable-http -sse-addr=:8080
The recommended way to run Kai in-cluster is with kmcp (from kagent), which manages MCP servers as MCPServer resources:
kmcp creates the Deployment and Service for you. The service account needs RBAC for the resources Kai manages — broad get/list/watch, plus create/update/delete where you use mutating tools. See the kmcp deploy guide.