Truenas

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Wiring a NAS into an AI assistant usually means registering one MCP tool per operation. Cover TrueNAS SCALE properly and that is 50-80 tool schemas — around 28,000 tokens of your context window spent before the model has read a single word of your question, on every request, whether or not you touch storage.

truenas-mcp covers 278 actions across 18 categories — the whole TrueNAS SCALE REST API — behind one hierarchical tool that costs about 200 tokens. The model asks what categories exist, drills into the one it needs, then calls the action. Destructive operations refuse to run without confirm: true.

Install (60 seconds)

# No install needed
TRUENAS_URL=https://truenas.local TRUENAS_API_KEY=1-abc123 npx truenas-mcp

Claude Code:

claude mcp add truenas \
  --env TRUENAS_URL=https://truenas.local \
  --env TRUENAS_API_KEY=1-your-api-key-here \
  -- npx -y truenas-mcp

Get the API key from the TrueNAS UI: Settings > API Keys > Add.

What it looks like

You: "Are my pools healthy, and can you make an NFS share for the media dataset?"

→ truenas({ category: "storage", action: "pool_list" })
  tank — ONLINE, 68% used, 0 errors

→ truenas({ category: "sharing", action: "nfs_share_create",
            params: { path: "/mnt/tank/media", comment: "Media share" } })

The model discovered nfs_share_create by calling truenas({ category: "sharing" }) first — it never had those 36 sharing actions in its prompt.

Why one tool instead of 278

	truenas-mcp	Typical NAS MCP server
Actions	278	5-80
Token footprint	~200 tokens (1 tool)	5,000-30,000 tokens (50-80 tools)
Discovery	Hierarchical — ask for what you need	Flat — everything loaded upfront
MCP Resources	12 read-only dashboards	0
Install	npx truenas-mcp	Build from source / pip
Safety	Destructive ops require confirm: true	Varies

Full configuration

# Using npx (no install needed)
TRUENAS_URL=https://truenas.local TRUENAS_API_KEY=1-abc123 npx truenas-mcp

# Or install globally
npm install -g truenas-mcp

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
TRUENAS_URL	Yes	TrueNAS instance URL (e.g. https://truenas.local)
TRUENAS_API_KEY	Yes	API key from TrueNAS UI: Settings > API Keys > Add
TRUENAS_VERIFY_SSL	No	Set to false to skip SSL verification (self-signed certs)

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "truenas": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "truenas-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "TRUENAS_URL": "https://truenas.local",
        "TRUENAS_API_KEY": "1-your-api-key-here",
        "TRUENAS_VERIFY_SSL": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add truenas \
  --env TRUENAS_URL=https://truenas.local \
  --env TRUENAS_API_KEY=1-your-api-key-here \
  --env TRUENAS_VERIFY_SSL=false \
  -- npx -y truenas-mcp

How It Works — Hierarchical Tool Design

Instead of registering 278 individual tools (which would consume ~30k tokens in the LLM system prompt), this server exposes one tool called truenas with three usage modes:

1. Discover categories

truenas()

Returns all 18 categories with descriptions and action counts (~200 tokens).

2. Explore a category

truenas({ category: "storage" })

Returns all actions in that category with their required/optional parameters.

3. Execute an action

truenas({ category: "storage", action: "pool_list" })
truenas({ category: "storage", action: "dataset_create", params: { name: "tank/media", compression: "LZ4" } })

This means the LLM only pays the token cost for what it actually uses.

Categories

Category	Actions	Covers
system	24	System info, config, services, mail, API keys, NTP
storage	32	Pools, datasets, snapshots, periodic snapshot tasks
sharing	36	SMB/CIFS, NFS exports, iSCSI targets/extents/portals/initiators
network	15	Interfaces, global config, static routes, IPMI, staged changes
account	16	Users, groups, privileges/roles
disk	7	Physical disks, SMART tests, temperatures
vm	16	Virtual machines, VM devices (disk, NIC, display, PCI)
app	17	Docker apps, container runtime config
update	14	System updates, boot environments, boot pool
certificate	8	TLS certs, ACME/Let's Encrypt, DNS authenticators
alert	10	Alerts, notification services (Slack, email, PagerDuty)
data_protection	49	Replication, cloud sync, cloud backup, cron, rsync, init scripts, SSH keys
filesystem	7	stat, listdir, mkdir, permissions, ACLs, chown
reporting	3	Metrics config, graphs, time-series data
directory	8	Active Directory, LDAP, Kerberos
service_config	12	SSH, FTP, SNMP, UPS, system tunables
audit	3	Audit logs, audit configuration
api	1	Raw API escape hatch for any endpoint

MCP Resources (12)

Read-only resources for dashboards — no tool call needed:

Resource	URI	Description
System Info	truenas://system/info	Version, hostname, uptime, hardware
Pools	truenas://storage/pools	All pools with capacity and health
Datasets	truenas://storage/datasets	All datasets with properties
Services	truenas://services	Service status overview
Alerts	truenas://alerts	Current system alerts
Network	truenas://network/summary	Interfaces, IPs, DNS, gateway
Shares	truenas://sharing	All SMB, NFS, and iSCSI shares
VMs	truenas://vms	Virtual machines with status
Apps	truenas://apps	Installed applications
Disks	truenas://disks	Physical disks info
Boot Envs	truenas://boot/environments	Boot environments
Update	truenas://system/update	Update configuration

Example Conversations

"What pools do I have and are they healthy?"

→ truenas({ category: "storage", action: "pool_list" })

"Create an NFS share for /mnt/tank/media"

→ truenas({ category: "sharing", action: "nfs_share_create", params: { path: "/mnt/tank/media", comment: "Media share" } })

"Check for system updates"

→ truenas({ category: "update", action: "update_check" })

"What SMART tests have run on sda?"

→ truenas({ category: "disk", action: "disk_smart_test_list", params: { disk: "sda" } })

Safety

All destructive operations require confirm: true in params:

• Pool create/export/disk replace
• Dataset/snapshot delete, snapshot rollback
• VM delete, app delete/rollback
• System reboot/shutdown, update apply
• Disk wipe, boot disk attach/detach
• Certificate delete, boot env delete
• Directory services leave, ACL set

Without confirm: true, these actions return an error message explaining what would happen.

API Compatibility

Built for TrueNAS SCALE REST API v2.0. Compatible with TrueNAS SCALE 22.x through 25.x.

Development

git clone https://github.com/spranab/truenas-mcp
cd truenas-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm run dev  # watch mode

Related projects

Other MCP servers and agent infrastructure built by the same author:

• mcpier — self-hosted MCP control plane for your homelab; keeps API keys off your clients.
• saga-mcp — SQLite-backed project tracker so the agent doesn't lose the plan between sessions.
• yantrikdb-mcp — persistent cognitive memory for Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf.
• swarmcode — real-time channel between Claude Code instances on different machines.
• brainstorm-mcp — multi-model debate as an MCP tool.

License

MIT