Prometheus MCP server for AI agents

The Prometheus MCP Server provides access to Prometheus metrics and queries through standardized Model Context Protocol (MCP) interfaces, enabling AI assistants to execute PromQL queries and analyze metrics data. It acts as a bridge between your Prometheus monitoring system and AI tools.

Features

Execute PromQL queries against Prometheus
Discover and explore metrics (list available metrics, get metadata, view query results)
Authentication support (basic auth, bearer token)
Docker containerization support
Interactive tools for AI assistants

Installation

You can run the Prometheus MCP Server using Docker, which is the recommended method for deployment.

Prerequisites

A running Prometheus server that is accessible from the environment where you'll run the MCP server
Docker (if using the containerized approach)

Configuration

Configure the necessary environment variables for connecting to your Prometheus server:

# Required: Prometheus configuration
PROMETHEUS_URL=http://your-prometheus-server:9090

# Optional: Authentication credentials (if needed)
# Choose one of the following authentication methods if required:

# For basic auth
PROMETHEUS_USERNAME=your_username
PROMETHEUS_PASSWORD=your_password

# For bearer token auth
PROMETHEUS_TOKEN=your_token

# Optional: For multi-tenant setups like Cortex, Mimir or Thanos
ORG_ID=your_organization_id

Usage

Setting Up With Claude Desktop

To add the Prometheus MCP server to your Claude Desktop configuration:

Update your Claude Desktop configuration file to include the MCP server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "prometheus": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "PROMETHEUS_URL",
        "ghcr.io/pab1it0/prometheus-mcp-server:latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PROMETHEUS_URL": "http://your-prometheus-server:9090"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace the PROMETHEUS_URL value with the actual URL of your Prometheus server.
If authentication is required, add the appropriate environment variables to the configuration.

Available Tools

The Prometheus MCP Server provides several tools that AI assistants can use:

execute_query - Execute a PromQL instant query against Prometheus
execute_range_query - Execute a PromQL range query with start time, end time, and step interval
list_metrics - List all available metrics in Prometheus
get_metric_metadata - Get metadata for a specific metric
get_targets - Get information about all scrape targets

These tools are configurable, allowing you to enable only the specific functionality you need.

Examples

Executing a PromQL Query

To execute a simple PromQL query to check CPU usage:

execute_query(query="rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode='idle'}[5m])")

Listing Available Metrics

To discover what metrics are available in your Prometheus instance:

list_metrics()

Getting Metric Metadata

To retrieve metadata about a specific metric:

get_metric_metadata(metric="node_cpu_seconds_total")

Executing a Range Query

To view data over a time period:

execute_range_query(
  query="rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode='idle'}[5m])",
  start="2023-06-01T00:00:00Z",
  end="2023-06-01T01:00:00Z",
  step="5m"
)

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "prometheus" '{"command":"docker","args":["run","-i","--rm","-e","PROMETHEUS_URL","ghcr.io/pab1it0/prometheus-mcp-server:latest"],"env":{"PROMETHEUS_URL":"<url>"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "prometheus": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "PROMETHEUS_URL",
                "ghcr.io/pab1it0/prometheus-mcp-server:latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "PROMETHEUS_URL": "<url>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "prometheus": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "PROMETHEUS_URL",
                "ghcr.io/pab1it0/prometheus-mcp-server:latest"
            ],
            "env": {
                "PROMETHEUS_URL": "<url>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect