Add dashboard MCP server #12148

JamesNK · 2025-10-18T04:19:17Z

Description

Additionals in dashboard MCP server PR:

MCP server with access to tools from AI chat
MCP endpoint
Header icon and dialog for getting MCP details
API key auth for MCP server
Integration tests

MCP dialog below. Description and instructions to add MCP server are work in progress and will be finalized in follow up PRs:

Checklist

Is this feature complete?
- Yes. Ready to ship.
- No. Follow-up changes expected.
Are you including unit tests for the changes and scenario tests if relevant?
- Yes
- No
Did you add public API?
- Yes
  - If yes, did you have an API Review for it?
    - Yes
    - No
  - Did you add <remarks /> and <code /> elements on your triple slash comments?
    - Yes
    - No
- No
Does the change make any security assumptions or guarantees?
- Yes
  - If yes, have you done a threat model and had a security review?
    - Yes
    - No
- No
Does the change require an update in our Aspire docs?
- Yes
  - Link to aspire-docs issue (consider using one of the following templates):
- No

github-actions · 2025-10-18T04:19:31Z

🚀 Dogfood this PR with:

⚠️ WARNING: Do not do this without first carefully reviewing the code of this PR to satisfy yourself it is safe.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dotnet/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.sh | bash -s -- 12148

Or

Run remotely in PowerShell:

iex "& { $(irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dotnet/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.ps1) } 12148"

Copilot

Pull Request Overview

Adds MCP server support to the dashboard, including configuration, authentication, endpoint hosting, UI integration, and integration tests.

Introduces MCP endpoint, auth modes (unsecured/API key), environment/config options, and server tools.
Refactors telemetry/log limiting helpers and adds MCP-related warnings and UI dialog.
Adds integration tests for MCP endpoint and API key behavior.

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 54 out of 57 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
AssistantChatDataContextTests.cs	Removed legacy limit tests after refactor to AIHelpers.
AIHelpersTests.cs	Added limit tests now targeting AIHelpers.
StartupTests.cs	Added log assertion for unsecured MCP warning.
DashboardServerFixture.cs	Injects MCP auth mode config for tests.
McpServiceTests.cs	New integration tests for MCP endpoint and API key auth.
IntegrationTestHelpers.cs	Adds MCP URL configuration.
FrontendBrowserTokenAuthTests.cs	Adds MCP unsecured warning assertion.
KnownConfigNames.cs	Adds MCP endpoint env var constant.
DashboardConfigNames.cs	Adds MCP-related config keys.
DistributedApplicationBuilder.cs	Persists generated MCP API key to user secrets.
TransportOptionsValidator.cs	Validates MCP endpoint URL parsing.
DashboardOptions.cs (Hosting)	Adds MCP endpoint/api key options.
DashboardEventHandlers.cs	Adds MCP endpoint handling and env var population.
BrowserStorageKeys.cs	Adds storage key for MCP unsecured message dismissal.
IDashboardClient.cs / DashboardClient.cs	Exposes GetResources with locking.
Localization .xlf and .resx files	Adds MCP unsecured warning strings.
AssistantChatDataContext.cs	Moves limit logic to AIHelpers.
AIHelpers.cs	Centralizes limits and list trimming logic.
ResourceMcpTools.cs	Implements MCP server tools (resources, logs, traces, commands).
McpServerModel.cs	Defines MCP server model + source gen context.
McpExtensions.cs	Registers MCP server and tools via SDK.
Mcp* authentication handlers	Adds MCP auth modes and composite handler.
DashboardWebApplication.cs	Hosts MCP server, maps /mcp, configures endpoint & auth.
Validate/PostConfigureDashboardOptions.cs	Parses/validates MCP options and defaults.
DashboardOptions.cs (Dashboard)	Adds McpOptions class with parsing.
MainLayout.*	Adds MCP dialog and unsecured message display.
McpServerDialog.*	UI dialog for MCP server config & install links.
AspireIcons.cs	Adds MCP icon.
ConnectionType*	Adds MCP connection type & scheme.
Aspire.Dashboard.csproj	Adds ModelContextProtocol packages & Razor feature flag.
RunCommand.cs	Adds MCP endpoint env var for CLI run profile.
launchSettings.json	Adds MCP endpoint env vars for playground app.
Directory.Packages.props	Updates MCP protocol package versions.

Files not reviewed (1)

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Resources/Layout.Designer.cs: Language not supported

src/Aspire.Hosting/Dashboard/DashboardEventHandlers.cs

src/Aspire.Dashboard/DashboardWebApplication.cs

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Mcp/ResourceMcpTools.cs

Copilot · 2025-10-18T04:20:38Z

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Mcp/AspireMcpTools.cs

+
+            return response;
+        }
+        catch { }


Swallowing all exceptions without logging obscures failures in GetResourceGraph; replace with a specific exception catch or log the exception (at least debug/trace) to aid diagnostics.

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Components/Dialogs/McpServerDialog.razor

davidfowl · 2025-10-18T20:02:35Z

Tried this but the template isn't updated with the right config so I cant see the mcp server 😄

Meir017 · 2025-10-19T14:41:52Z

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Mcp/AspireMcpTools.cs

+    }
+
+    [McpServerTool(Name = "aspire_execute_command"), Description("Executes a command on a resource.")]
+    public static async Task ExecuteCommand(IDashboardClient dashboardClient, [Description("The resource name")] string resourceName, [Description("The command name")] string commandName)


what would happen here if the command uses the interactive service and prompt the user for inputs?

@JamesNK This is a great question and something we're going to have to handle. Something to file...

Meir017

instead of adding the mcp-vscode images, can we use markdown? similar to this https://github.com/github/github-mcp-server/blob/main/README.md?plain=1#L19C1-L19C655?

JamesNK · 2025-10-21T02:02:35Z

instead of adding the mcp-vscode images, can we use markdown? similar to this github/github-mcp-server@main/README.md?plain=1#L19C1-L19C655?

Those aren't used anymore. UI already uses SVG. I'll remove the old images.

I don't want to reference an external badge service. Using SVG generated by them has the same effect without the delay in calling another website.

JamesNK · 2025-10-21T03:45:48Z

Tried this but the template isn't updated with the right config so I cant see the mcp server 😄

@davidfowl What should happen if there isn't MCP server config? All existing Aspire apps won't have an MCP URL in config.

Two options:

Viewing the MCP dialog displays a message that MCP isn't configured and give instructions for adding it to launchSettings.json
Or, default the mcp endpoint to the browser endpoint if an MCP endpoint isn't specifically defined. MCP would just work without extra configuraiton.

davidfowl · 2025-10-21T06:17:59Z

Viewing the MCP dialog displays a message that MCP isn't configured and give instructions for adding it to launchSettings.json

Yes

Or, default the mcp endpoint to the browser endpoint if an MCP endpoint isn't specifically defined. MCP would just work without extra configuraiton.

This sounds better.

If we do the latter, we don't need to update the templates. We can do both though. Thoughts? Maybe we allow configuring the MCP server on a different endpoint but by default it can hang off the dashboard endpoint.

davidfowl · 2025-10-21T06:30:03Z

Update the project templates here https://github.com/dotnet/aspire/tree/main/src/Aspire.ProjectTemplates/templates

JamesNK · 2025-10-21T06:51:56Z

If we do the latter, we don't need to update the templates. We can do both though. Thoughts? Maybe we allow configuring the MCP server on a different endpoint but by default it can hang off the dashboard endpoint.

I think MCP should be:

Configurable as its own endpoint and have new configuration added to templates
Default to the frontend endpoint if not configured for backwards compatibility
If you really don't want MCP, there will be a config flag to disable it (will also hide the icon in the dashboard)

JamesNK · 2025-10-21T10:04:23Z

If we do the latter, we don't need to update the templates. We can do both though. Thoughts? Maybe we allow configuring the MCP server on a different endpoint but by default it can hang off the dashboard endpoint.

I think MCP should be:

Configurable as its own endpoint and have new configuration added to templates

Default to the frontend endpoint if not configured for backwards compatibility

If you really don't want MCP, there will be a config flag to disable it (will also hide the icon in the dashboard)

Done.

It's defaulted in the app host layer. Need to do it there because the app host needs to tell the dashboard what the public URL of the MCP server is. Dashboard uses the public URL, not the proxy endpoint URL, to display in the UI what the MCP endpoint is.

src/Aspire.Dashboard/Mcp/ResourceMcpTools.cs

mitchdenny · 2025-10-26T00:32:08Z

Overall, I think this looks good. I am wondering whether we should do something more MCP-specific in the resource model beyond allowing resource command execution. For example, should we allow developers to be able to register resource specific MCP tools.

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.AddPostgres(...)
  .WithExecuteQueryTool(...);

JamesNK · 2025-10-26T11:04:17Z

No one has asked for it. Not a V1 feature.

If people put forward where it would be used then it could be considered in the future.

davidfowl

Lets get this in today (so we can focus on the http vs http problems and how to mitigate)

mitchdenny · 2025-10-26T23:18:34Z

Lets get this in today (so we can focus on the http vs http problems and how to mitigate)

Agree. I think the HTTPS issue will be an adoption blocker for this and it would be great to have a workaround.

mitchdenny · 2025-10-26T23:25:08Z

Created an issue to track a limitation of our current approach: #12394

mitchdenny

TLS issue aside this worked really well.

JamesNK requested review from adamint, Copilot, davidfowl, mitchdenny and sebastienros October 18, 2025 04:19

JamesNK added the area-dashboard label Oct 18, 2025

Copilot AI reviewed Oct 18, 2025

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Meir017 reviewed Oct 19, 2025

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JamesNK commented Oct 22, 2025

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src/Aspire.Dashboard/Mcp/ResourceMcpTools.cs Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

JamesNK force-pushed the jamesnk/dashboardmcp branch from 03fa055 to 10c9860 Compare October 22, 2025 04:34

JamesNK requested review from DamianEdwards, captainsafia, eerhardt and maddymontaquila October 26, 2025 00:00

Add dashboard MCP server

125f323

JamesNK force-pushed the jamesnk/dashboardmcp branch from 29cafc3 to 125f323 Compare October 26, 2025 11:07

davidfowl approved these changes Oct 26, 2025

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mitchdenny approved these changes Oct 26, 2025

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MihuBot mentioned this pull request Oct 26, 2025

[✨ Triage] dotnet/aspire#12394 by mitchdenny - Enable Aspire MCP server on GitHub Coding Agent MihuBot/runtime-utils#1601

Open

JamesNK added 3 commits October 27, 2025 08:56

Clean up

46144e7

Icon support

a06d683

Add MCP to notices

96c12e0

JamesNK enabled auto-merge (squash) October 27, 2025 03:04

JamesNK merged commit 4e6589b into main Oct 27, 2025
305 checks passed

JamesNK deleted the jamesnk/dashboardmcp branch October 27, 2025 03:15

dotnet-policy-service bot added this to the 13.0 milestone Oct 27, 2025

MihuBot mentioned this pull request Oct 28, 2025

[✨ Triage] dotnet/aspire#12430 by JamesNK - Disable resource related MCP tools when there is no resource service spe ... MihuBot/runtime-utils#1605

Open

radical pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Oct 29, 2025

Add dashboard MCP server (#12148)

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Add dashboard MCP server #12148

Add dashboard MCP server #12148

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