insights-mcp

RedHatInsights/insights-mcp

3.4

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The Insights MCP server is designed to interact with Red Hat Insights services, providing a streamlined interface for tasks such as image building.

Insights MCP

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to interact with insights services like the

Toolsets

See for the toolsets available in the MCP server.

Authentication

Note: Authentication is only required for accessing Red Hat Insights APIs. The MCP server itself does not require authentication.

Service Account Setup

  1. Go to https://console.redhat.com → Click Settings (⚙️ Gear Icon) → "Service Accounts"
  2. Create a service account and remember Client ID and Client secret for later.
    See below in the integration instructions, there they are respectively referred to as INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET.

Required Permissions by Toolset

Different toolsets require specific roles for your service account:

  • Advisor tools: RHEL Advisor viewer
  • Inventory tools: Inventory Hosts viewer
  • Vulnerability tools: Vulnerability viewer, Inventory Hosts viewer
  • Remediation tools: Remediations user

Granting Permissions to Service Accounts

By default, service accounts have no access. An organization administrator must assign permissions:

For detailed step-by-step instructions, see this video tutorial: Service Account Permissions Setup

  1. Log in as Organization Administrator with User Access administrator role

  2. Navigate to User Access Settings: Click Settings (⚙️ Gear Icon) → "User Access" → "Groups"

  3. Assign permissions (choose one option):

    Option A - Create New Group:

    • Create new group (e.g., mcp-service-accounts)
    • Add required roles (e.g., RHEL Advisor viewer, Inventory Hosts viewer, etc.)
    • Add your service account to this group

    Option B - Use Existing Group:

    • Open existing group with necessary roles
    • Go to "Service accounts" tab
    • Add your service account to the group

Your service account will inherit all roles from the assigned group.

⚠️ Security Remarks ⚠️

If you start this MCP server locally (with podman or docker) make sure the container is not exposed to the internet. In this scenario it's probably fine to use INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET although your MCP Client (e.g. VSCode, Cursor, etc.) can get your INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET.

For a deployment where you connect to this MCP server from a different machine, you should consider that INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET are transferred to the MCP server and you are trusting the remote MCP server not to leak them.

In both cases if you are in doubt, please disable/remove the INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET from your account after you are done using the MCP server.

Integrations

Prerequisites

Make sure you have podman installed.
(Docker is fine too but the commands below have to be adapted accordingly)

You can install it with sudo dnf install podman on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS, or on macOS use either Podman Desktop or brew install podman.

⚠️ Note if you use Podman on macOS, you sometimes need to set the path to podman explicitly. E.g. replace podman with the full path. Should be something like

  • /usr/local/bin/podman
  • /opt/homebrew/bin/podman
  • …

You can find the path by running which podman in your terminal.

VSCode

First check the prerequisites section.

Option 1: One-click installation (easiest)

Install with Podman in VS Code
(Note: this uses the quay.io container image)

Option 2: Manual STDIO installation

For the usage in your project, create a file called .vscode/mcp.json with the following content.

{
    "inputs": [
        {
            "id": "insights_client_id",
            "type": "promptString",
            "description": "Enter the Red Hat Insights Client ID",
            "default": "",
            "password": true
        },
        {
            "id": "insights_client_secret",
            "type": "promptString",
            "description": "Enter the Red Hat Insights Client Secret",
            "default": "",
            "password": true
        }
    ],
    "servers": {
        "insights-mcp": {
            "type": "stdio",
            "command": "podman",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "--env",
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID",
                "--env",
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET",
                "--interactive",
                "--rm",
                "ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID": "${input:insights_client_id}",
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET": "${input:insights_client_secret}"
            }
        }
    }
}

Cursor

First check the prerequisites section.

Option 1: One-click installation (easiest)

⚠️ Use Ctrl/Cmd-click to open in a new tab.
Otherwise the tab will close after installation and you won't see the documentation anymore.
Install with Podman in Cursor
(Note: this uses the quay.io container image)

Option 2: Manual STDIO installation

Cursor doesn't seem to support inputs you need to add your credentials in the config file. To start the integration create a file ~/.cursor/mcp.json with

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "insights-mcp": {
        "type": "stdio",
        "command": "podman",
        "args": [
            "run",
            "--env",
            "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID",
            "--env",
            "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET",
            "--interactive",
            "--rm",
            "ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest"
        ],
        "env": {
            "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID": "",
            "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET": ""
        }
    }
  }
}
Option 3: Manual Streamable HTTP installation (advanced)

start the server:

podman run --net host --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest http

then integrate:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "insights-mcp": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "insights-client-id": "",
                "insights-client-secret": ""
            }
        }
    }
}

Gemini CLI

First check the prerequisites section.

Option 1: Manual STDIO installation

To start the integration create a file ~/.gemini/settings.json with the following command:

{
    ...
    "mcpServers": {
        "insights-mcp": {
            "type": "stdio",
            "command": "podman",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "--env",
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>",
                "--env",
                "INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET>",
                "--interactive",
                "--rm",
                "ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}
Option 2: Manual Streamable HTTP installation (advanced)

start the server:

podman run --net host --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest http

[!NOTE] For podman machine on a mac you will need to set the host explicitly and expose the port

  podman run -p 8000:8000 --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest http --host 0.0.0.0

then integrate:

{
    ...
    "mcpServers": {
        "insights-mcp": {
            "httpUrl": "http://localhost:8000/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "insights-client-id": "<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>",
                "insights-client-secret": "<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Claude Desktop

First check the prerequisites section.

For Claude Desktop there is an extension file in the release section of the project.

Just download the insights-mcp*.dxt file and add this in Claude Desktop with

Settings -> Extensions -> Advanced Extensions Settings -> Install Extension…

CLine with VSCode

First check the prerequisites section.

First off, start the SSE server with sse argument:

export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>
export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET>
podman run --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET --net host --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest sse

In the CLine -> Manage MCP Servers interface, add a new server name and URL: http://localhost:9000/sse. It shall create the following config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-insights": {
      "disabled": false,
      "type": "sse",
      "url": "http://localhost:9000/sse"
    }
  }
}

Ensure the type is sse as CLine does not support HTTP transport yet.

Generic STDIO

First check the prerequisites section.

For generic integration into other tools via STDIO, you should set the environment variables INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET and use this command for an integration using podman:

export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>
export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET>
podman run --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET --interactive --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest

It is the MCP API what is exposed through standard input, not a chat interface. You need an MCP client with "agent capabilities" to connect to the insights-mcp server and really use it.

Claude Code

First check the prerequisites section.

Claude Code requires a slight change to the podman command, as the host environment is not available when it runs. The credentials must be copied into the configuration instead, which can be done with the following command after setting INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID and INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET environment variables:

export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID>
export INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET>
claude mcp add insights-mcp -- podman run --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=$INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=$INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET --interactive --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest

or just set the variables in the command directly:

claude mcp add insights-mcp -- podman run --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR_CLIENT_ID> --env INSIGHTS_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET> --interactive --rm ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest

To verify setup was successful, within the Claude terminal execute the command:

/mcp

If successful, you should see insights-mcp listed under Manage MCP servers with a green check mark connected status besides it.

Examples

It's probably best to just ask the LLM you just attached to the MCP server to. e.g.

Please explain insights-mcp and what I can do with it?

For example questions specific to each toolset please have a look at the test files:

CLI

For some use cases it might be needed to use the MCP server directly from the command line. See for the usage of the MCP server.

Releases

There are two container images published for this MCP server.

  • ghcr.io/redhatinsights/insights-mcp:latest
  • quay.io/redhat-services-prod/insights-management-tenant/insights-mcp/insights-mcp:latest

They are both based on main branch and you can use either of them.

Disclaimer

This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. Use at your own risk. The authors and contributors are not liable for any damages or issues that may arise from using this software.

Contributing

Please refer to the to learn more.