Ambassador Server

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Centralized authentication, authorization, and audit for MCP tools. One server governs every downstream MCP your organization uses.

What Is This

MCP Ambassador Server is the control plane for managing MCP tools across your organization. It proxies, authenticates, authorizes, and audits every tool call between AI clients and downstream MCP servers. Think of it as what LiteLLM does for LLM providers, but for MCP servers.

Key Features

• MCP Marketplace -- Admin-published catalog of downstream MCPs with group-based visibility
• User Self-Service -- Users browse, subscribe to, and manage their own tool access through the web portal
• Per-User MCP Isolation -- Dedicated MCP instances per user with encrypted credential injection
• Group-Based RBAC -- Control which teams see which tools through group assignments
• Credential Vault -- AES-256-GCM encrypted per-user API keys with HKDF-derived keys
• OAuth 2.0 Integration -- Authorization code flow for downstream MCP authentication (GitHub, etc.)
• Admin Dashboard -- React SPA for managing users, groups, MCPs, and audit logs
• Audit Logging -- Append-only JSONL log of every authentication decision and tool invocation
• Kill Switches -- Instantly disable any MCP or client across the entire organization
• Docker Deployment -- Single container with bind-mount volumes and auto-generated TLS

Quick Start

Prerequisites: Docker Engine 20+, docker compose v2

git clone https://github.com/mcpambassador/server.git
cd server
cp .env.example .env
docker compose up

Open https://localhost:9443 -- the first-run setup wizard will guide you through creating an admin account.

Ports

Port	Service
8443	Client API (MCP proxy endpoint)
9443	Admin and user web portal

For production deployment, see the Deployment Guide.

MCP Lifecycle

Every MCP goes through a four-step lifecycle before users can access its tools:

Create (draft/pending) --> Validate (draft/valid) --> Discover Tools --> Publish (active)

Step	Action	What Happens
1. Create	Admin > MCPs > Create MCP	Define name, transport, command, environment variables, isolation mode. MCP starts as draft / pending.
2. Validate	Click Validate on the MCP	Server checks the configuration is well-formed. Status moves to draft / valid.
3. Discover Tools	Click Discover Tools	Server spawns the MCP process, connects, calls tools/list, and records the available tools.
4. Publish	Click Publish	MCP becomes published and appears in the user Marketplace.

After publishing, users can browse the Marketplace, subscribe their clients to the MCP, and start using the tools through their AI clients.

Note: If an MCP requires per-user credentials (e.g., API keys), the Discover Tools step will prompt for temporary credentials to use during discovery. These are not stored.

Connecting a Client

Install the MCP Ambassador Client to connect AI tools to this server.

npm install -g @mcpambassador/client

VS Code configuration example:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "mcpambassador": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@mcpambassador/client", "--config", "/path/to/amb-client-config.json"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_AMBASSADOR_URL": "https://localhost:8443",
        "MCP_AMBASSADOR_PRESHARED_KEY": "amb_pk_YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

See @mcpambassador/client for Claude Desktop, OpenCode, and other integrations.

Monorepo Structure

Package	Description
@mcpambassador/protocol	Type-only API contract between client and server (zero runtime deps)
@mcpambassador/core	Database schema, SPI interfaces, pipeline, validation
@mcpambassador/server	Hono HTTP/2 server, REST API routes, MCP process pools
@mcpambassador/spa	React 19 admin dashboard and user self-service portal
@mcpambassador/authn-ephemeral	Preshared key and ephemeral session authentication
@mcpambassador/authz-local	Group-based RBAC authorization
@mcpambassador/audit-file	JSONL audit log provider
@mcpambassador/contracts	Zod schemas for API request/response validation

Security

• TLS on all ports (self-signed auto-generated or CA-signed)
• Argon2id password hashing
• AES-256-GCM credential encryption with per-user HKDF-derived keys
• HMAC-SHA256 session tokens with configurable idle timeout
• Process isolation for stdio MCP child processes
• Non-root Docker container with read-only root filesystem
• Append-only audit log for compliance and forensics

Development

# Prerequisites: Node.js 20+, pnpm 8.15+
pnpm install
pnpm -r build
pnpm -r test
pnpm -r lint
pnpm -r typecheck
pnpm format:check

Related Projects

Project	Description
@mcpambassador/client	Lightweight MCP proxy for developer workstations
Community Registry	Curated registry of 38+ MCP server configurations
Documentation	Full documentation, guides, and API reference

Configuration Reference

MCP Ambassador is configured via environment variables. All settings have production-ready defaults. See mcpambassador.ai/docs/configuration for the full reference.

Timing & Performance

These settings control session management, health monitoring, and internal scheduling. The defaults are tuned for production use with hundreds of concurrent sessions.

Setting	Default	Description
Session TTL	28800s (8h)	Client session token lifetime before re-authentication
Session eval interval	120s	How often the server checks for idle/expired sessions
Session sweep interval	1800s (30m)	How often the server purges expired sessions from memory
Heartbeat expected interval	120s	Expected interval between client heartbeats
Heartbeat rate limit	1 per 10s	Maximum heartbeat frequency per client
Health check interval	120s	How often the server checks downstream MCP health

SPA Polling Intervals

The admin/user web portal polls the server for live data. These intervals balance responsiveness with server load.

Endpoint	Interval	Description
Health status	60s	MCP instance health
MCP list	60s	Admin MCP catalog
Catalog	60s	User marketplace
Logs	30s	MCP instance logs

Deployment Profiles

Profile	Session TTL	Heartbeat	Eval Interval	Recommended For
Default	8h	120s	120s	Most production deployments
High-security	4h	60s	60s	Regulated environments, SOC2
Development	24h	30s	30s	Local development, testing

For client-side settings (heartbeat interval, cache TTL, catalog refresh), see @mcpambassador/client.

Contributing

We welcome contributions. See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Prerequisites: Node.js 20+, pnpm 8.15+, Docker

Support

MCP Ambassador is free and open source. If it's useful to you, consider supporting development.

Support via GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors/mcpambassador

Crypto donations:

• Bitcoin: 3QH4WQoQqnhU3LhbZQU8ttXaNco5Ge3xVp
• Ethereum: 0xa5462444c5AEf0B2e32822D9a9B7f91aC794FfF0

License

Apache License 2.0 -- see LICENSE.

Status

MCP Ambassador is at v0.8.0-beta.2. The API may change before 1.0. Production use is supported but expect breaking changes during the beta period.