Kuboard MCP Tools

The Kuboard MCP Server provides 34 tools in total, grouped into three categories by purpose: read, write, and change approval. This page lists every tool's name, key parameters, and purpose for reference when configuring your agent.

Audience: operations / platform engineers who want to give an AI agent (Agent) access to Kuboard cluster operations.

Reading conventions

• Tool names keep their original English names (e.g. list_clusters); agents call these tools directly by name
• Parameters are marked required / (optional); most write tools carry a dryRun (optional) parameter — set to true it only validates and does not really execute, useful for previewing the change result
• This page is the detailed expansion of "What MCP provides" in the MCP capabilities overview

Three Tool Categories: Read / Write / Approval

All tools are grouped by their real side effects into three categories: read tools only query and never modify; write tools issue persistent write operations to the cluster; change approval (Plan) tools are the entry through which write tools are executed after they get approval.

Category	Count	Description	Approval needed
Read	19	Query clusters, workloads, Pods, logs, metrics, etc.; never modify any resource	No — returns on call
Write	10	Create / modify / delete K8s resources, restart and scale, node drain, etc.	Yes — goes through change-plan approval first
Change approval (Plan)	5	Submit the pending write operations to you for approval; executes after approval	The approval flow itself

Write tools require approval

With "Force agent change approval" enabled, the 10 write tools are invisible and not directly callable by the agent. The agent must go through the change-plan flow: create_plan → append_step_to_plan → finalize_plan → you approve in the Kuboard UI → apply_plan(planId, approvalToken). See change approval flow and dangerous operations and confirmation tokens.

Danger level markers

Write tools carry a danger level, treated differently by marker at approval time:

• MEDIUM: apply_k8s / patch_k8s / delete_k8s
• HIGH: delete_k8s_collection (especially deleting PVCs), drain_node, evict_pod — prominently marked at approval time; double-check the impact scope of these

With "Force agent change approval" disabled, the 5 change approval (Plan) tools are hidden and the write tools become directly callable by the agent again.

All Tools at a Glance (34)

The table below lists all tools by the read / write / approval categories. Only key parameters are shown; refer to each tool's actual schema when configuring your agent.

Tool	Category	Key parameters	Purpose
list_clusters	Read	None	List all clusters the current user can access (id / name); first step of a session
list_namespaces	Read	clusterId	List the namespace tree of the given cluster
list_workloads	Read	clusterId, namespace	List Deployments / StatefulSets / DaemonSets
get_workload	Read	clusterId, namespace, kind, name	Get the full YAML of a single workload
get_workload_history	Read	clusterId, namespace, kind, name	List the workload's historical revisions (view before rollback)
list_endpoints	Read	clusterId, namespace (optional)	List endpoints
check_permission	Read	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, verb, namespace (optional)	Check whether the current user has permission on a resource (self-check before a write operation)
get_pod	Read	clusterId, namespace, name	Get detailed info of a single Pod
get_pod_logs	Read	clusterId, namespace, name, tailLines (default 100, max 1000), container, previous, sinceSeconds	Get Pod logs
list_k8s	Read	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, namespace (optional)	List K8s resources of any registered type (ConfigMap / Secret / Service / Ingress / PVC, etc.)
get_k8s	Read	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, name, namespace (optional)	Get details of a single K8s resource
list_events	Read	clusterId, namespace (optional), limit (default 50)	List cluster events; troubleshoot ImagePullBackOff, CrashLoopBackOff, etc.
get_node_metrics	Read	clusterId, name (optional, defaults to all nodes)	Query real-time CPU / memory usage of nodes
get_pod_metrics	Read	clusterId, namespace (optional), name (optional)	Query real-time CPU / memory usage of Pods
list_custom_resources	Read	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, namespaced, namespace (optional)	List instances of a given CRD (CRs created by Operator / Helm)
prometheus_query	Read	clusterId, query, time (optional), timeout (optional)	PromQL instant query
prometheus_query_range	Read	clusterId, query, start, end, step	PromQL range query
prometheus_label_values	Read	clusterId, label, matchSeries (optional)	Query the values of a label
prometheus_buildinfo	Read	clusterId, timeout (optional)	Query Prometheus version and health info
apply_k8s	Write · MEDIUM	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, namespace, yaml, dryRun (optional)	Apply K8s YAML: update the resource if it exists, create it if it does not
patch_k8s	Write · MEDIUM	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, name, patches, namespace (optional)	Modify resource fields with RFC 6902 JSON Patch
delete_k8s	Write · MEDIUM	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, name, namespace (optional), dryRun (optional)	Delete a single resource; idempotently returns success when it does not exist
delete_k8s_collection	Write · HIGH	clusterId, apiGroup, resource, namespace (optional), propagationPolicy (optional)	Delete an entire resource collection; pass Foreground explicitly when deleting a PVC collection
restart_workload	Write	clusterId, namespace, kind, name, dryRun (optional)	Restart a workload (rollingly recreate Pods)
scale_workload	Write	clusterId, namespace, kind (deployment / statefulset), name, replicas, dryRun (optional)	Change the replica count of a workload (scale up / down)
update_image_tag	Write	clusterId, namespace, kind, name, newImageTag, containerName (optional)	Update the image tag; applies to all containers when containerName is omitted
rollback_workload	Write	clusterId, namespace, kind, name, revisionToRollback (optional)	Roll back a workload; rolls back to the previous revision when the revision is omitted
drain_node	Write · HIGH	clusterId, nodeName, force (optional), gracePeriodSeconds (optional), dryRun (optional)	Drain a node: mark it unschedulable first, then evict all its Pods; force=true ignores PodDisruptionBudget
evict_pod	Write · HIGH	clusterId, namespace, podName, force (optional), gracePeriodSeconds (optional), dryRun (optional)	Evict a single Pod
create_plan	Approval	description	Create an empty change plan; returns planId
append_step_to_plan	Approval	planId, tool, args, description	Add an object to change into the plan; tool must be one of the 10 write tools and is dry-run validated before being added
finalize_plan	Approval	planId	Submit the plan into pending-approval state; from then on it is visible and approvable in the Kuboard UI
get_plan_approve_status	Approval	planId	After approval, query the result of each step and return the approvalToken
apply_plan	Approval	planId, approvalToken	Consume the approvalToken to actually execute all changes in the plan

Log parameter notes: container is required for multi-container Pods and can be omitted for single-container ones; previous set to true returns logs from before the last restart (valid only for terminated containers); sinceSeconds returns only logs from the last N seconds — use it or tailLines, not both.

The clusterId / namespace needed by read tools usually come from the return values of the first two tools, list_clusters and list_namespaces — have the agent call them at the start of a session, and every later tool is located by these two values.

Metrics and Prometheus Queries

Prerequisites

• The node / Pod metrics tools require metrics-server installed in the cluster; without it they return an error like "metrics.k8s.io unavailable"
• The Prometheus tools need a data source configured under System Settings → MCP Server → Prometheus first, see server configuration; unconfigured tools return a disabled notice

Prometheus queries are subject to cluster RBAC and rate limits: complex aggregate queries are rejected under the REJECT policy, and results exceeding the per-query series / points limit return PROM_TOO_LARGE. On failure the error code is passed through via meta.errorCode: PROM_NOT_FOUND (no Prometheus service found), PROM_UNREACHABLE (unreachable), PROM_QUERY_ERROR (query error), PROM_AUTH_FAILED (insufficient permission), PROM_SCOPE_TOO_LARGE (aggregation scope exceeds the limit).

Both metrics tools return normalized values: CPU converted to cores, memory to MiB — usable directly for alerting or comparison.

Typical Usage Flow

Once your agent is connected, a conversation like "restart nginx for me" roughly goes through these steps; the only thing you need to do is the final approval:

1. The agent first calls list_clusters / list_workloads to locate the cluster and workload — read tools return immediately, no involvement needed from you
2. The agent calls create_plan to create a change plan, adds write operations such as restart_workload via append_step_to_plan, then submits with finalize_plan
3. You see the plan in the pending list in the Kuboard UI, review the objects and parameters, approve, and receive the approvalToken
4. The agent calls apply_plan to execute; you can watch the progress and final result in the UI (all succeeded or partial failure)

Change Plans: The Entry to Write Approval

A change plan (Plan) is the only entry for submitting write operations to your approval, for the scenario where "the agent wants to change the cluster, but the change must be confirmed by you". The 5 tools are chained in a fixed order:

Step	Tool	Parameters	Purpose
1	create_plan	description	Create an empty plan and return planId; description states the purpose of this operation
2	append_step_to_plan	planId, tool, args, description	Append objects to change into the plan; callable multiple times to aggregate several changes; objects that fail dry-run never enter the plan
3	finalize_plan	planId	Submit the plan into pending-approval; you see it in the Kuboard UI and approve / reject
4	get_plan_approve_status	planId	After your approval, query each step's result; partial approval marks the skipped steps and returns the approvalToken
5	apply_plan	planId, approvalToken	Execute all approved changes in the plan; planId and the token must belong to the same plan

Plan status flow: CREATED (being built; visible in the list but not approvable) → PENDING (awaiting approval) → APPROVED → APPLYING → APPLIED / PARTIAL_APPLIED / FAILED, plus REJECTED (rejected), CANCELED (canceled), and EXPIRED (expired).

Usage suggestions

• The tool whitelist of append_step_to_plan is exactly the 10 write tools; write operations must be added to a plan first
• To reduce the number of approvals, combine the changes under the same purpose into a single plan

Related Pages

• MCP usage overview
• Server configuration (approval switch, Prometheus data source, rate limits)
• Change approval flow (submit → approve → execute, the full flow)
• Dangerous operations and confirmation tokens (danger level grading and HIGH operation details)