jaeger-mcp

MCP server for Jaeger distributed tracing. Give Claude (or any MCP-capable agent) read access to your trace data — search traces, inspect spans, map service dependencies — without leaving the conversation.

Why another Jaeger MCP?

The existing Jaeger integrations require a running UI or custom scripts. This server:

• Speaks the standard Model Context Protocol over stdio — works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP client.
• Is read-only: all 5 tools carry readOnlyHint: true — zero risk of modifying trace data.
• Returns dual-channel output: structured JSON (structuredContent) for programmatic use + Markdown (content) for human-readable display.
• Has actionable error messages that name the exact env var to fix and suggest a next step.
• Supports Bearer token, HTTP Basic auth, or no auth (common for internal deployments).

Tools

Tool	Endpoint	Description
jaeger_list_services	GET /api/services	List all instrumented services
jaeger_list_operations	GET /api/services/{service}/operations	List operation names for a service
jaeger_search_traces	GET /api/traces	Search traces with rich filters
jaeger_get_trace	GET /api/traces/{traceID}	Full trace detail with span tree
jaeger_get_dependencies	GET /api/dependencies	Service-to-service call graph

Installation

pip install jaeger-mcp

Or run directly without installing:

uvx jaeger-mcp

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables:

Variable	Required	Default	Description
JAEGER_URL	Yes	—	Jaeger query service URL, e.g. https://jaeger.example.com
JAEGER_TOKEN	No	—	Bearer token (takes precedence over Basic auth)
JAEGER_USERNAME	No	—	HTTP Basic auth username
JAEGER_PASSWORD	No	—	HTTP Basic auth password
JAEGER_SSL_VERIFY	No	true	Set false for self-signed certificates

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your values.

Claude Desktop / Claude Code setup

Add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json or .claude/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jaeger": {
      "command": "jaeger-mcp",
      "env": {
        "JAEGER_URL": "https://jaeger.example.com",
        "JAEGER_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with uvx (no install required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jaeger": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["jaeger-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "JAEGER_URL": "https://jaeger.example.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Docker

docker run --rm -e JAEGER_URL=https://jaeger.example.com jaeger-mcp

Example queries

Once configured, ask Claude:

• "What services does Jaeger know about?"
• "Find traces with HTTP 500 errors in order-service from the last hour"
• "Show me the slowest traces (over 2 seconds) for GET /checkout"
• "What caused the error in trace abcdef1234567890?"
• "Map the service dependency graph for the last 7 days"
• "Which services call postgres most frequently?"

Tool usage guide

jaeger_list_services

Returns all service names Jaeger has seen. Start here when you don't know which services are instrumented. Output is capped at 500 services with a truncation hint.

jaeger_list_operations

Returns all operation names for a given service (e.g. HTTP route names, gRPC method names). Use to discover valid operation names before filtering jaeger_search_traces.

jaeger_search_traces

The main search tool. Filters:

• service (required) — service name from jaeger_list_services
• operation — narrow to a specific endpoint
• tags — JSON string of tag filters, e.g. {"http.status_code":"500"} or {"error":"true"}
• start / end — time range in microseconds UTC
• min_duration / max_duration — duration strings like "100ms", "1.5s", "2m"
• limit — default 20, max 1500

Returns trace summaries with trace_id, duration_us, span_count, service_count, root_operation, errors_count.

jaeger_get_trace

Full trace detail. Accepts a trace_id (hex string, 16-32 chars) and returns:

• All spans with tags, service names, parent/child relationships
• Per-service statistics (span count, total duration, error count)
• Execution tree (each node lists its child span IDs)

Error spans are identified by tags["error"] = "true".

jaeger_get_dependencies

Service topology graph. Returns directed edges (parent → child) with call_count. Use lookback_hours (default 24, max 720) to control the window.

Performance characteristics

• All tools use a single persistent requests.Session with connection pooling.
• The session has trust_env = False to bypass environment proxies (Jaeger is typically an internal service).
• Requests time out after 30 seconds.
• jaeger_search_traces passes limit directly to Jaeger — avoid requesting more traces than needed.
• jaeger_get_trace fetches the full trace in one call — large traces (thousands of spans) may be slow.
• jaeger_get_dependencies aggregates over the full lookback window; large windows may be slow on busy clusters.

Development

git clone https://github.com/mshegolev/jaeger-mcp
cd jaeger-mcp
pip install -e '.[dev]'
pytest tests/ -v
ruff check src tests
ruff format src tests

License

MIT — see LICENSE.