Kirby MCP

Give your coding agent access to your Kirby project and the knowledge to work with it. Kirby MCP connects your agent to project structure, live content, runtime debugging, and a bundled Kirby knowledge base.

For Composer-based Kirby projects. Kirby 6 · PHP 8.3+ · Composer

Capabilities · Knowledge base · Quickstart · Connect your agent · Usage · Tools and resources · Documentation

Capabilities

Your agent discovers the tools and resources through MCP. You can ask in plain language; you do not need to memorize tool names. Browse the tool and resource lists below to see the full range.

Kirby knowledge, built in

Kirby MCP ships with a curated knowledge base, not just access to your site. Your agent can search and read the bundled documents locally, without a network request:

• Kirby glossary: concise explanations of concepts such as collections, models, hooks, and representations.
• Task recipes: practical steps for building forms, scaffolding page types, routing, multilingual content, and other everyday work.
• Content update guides: how fields store values, what update payloads should look like, and what to check before and after a write.
• Panel development guides: blueprint patterns, custom fields, plugin recipes, and editor/runtime references.

The guides connect explanations to the relevant MCP tools and resources, so your agent can move from learning a Kirby concept to inspecting and working with your actual project. For example, the page-picker guide explains stored references, shows an update payload, and points to the tools for reading and verifying the content.

Use kirby_search to find a topic, or read documents through kirby://kb and kirby://kb/{path}. Official documentation and plugin-directory searches provide online lookups when you need to go further. You can also browse the bundled Markdown yourself.

Quickstart

From your Kirby project root:

composer require --dev bnomei/kirby-mcp:"^6.0"
vendor/bin/kirby-mcp install

Then connect your agent. Your MCP client starts the server; no separate running terminal is needed.

[!IMPORTANT] The verified Kirby CMS baseline is 6.0.0-beta.1. Kirby MCP's stable version does not make the CMS beta production-ready. Install Kirby separately and explicitly opt into its beta, for example with composer require getkirby/cms:"6.0.0-beta.1" --with-all-dependencies on a test copy before installing MCP. For Kirby 5, use bnomei/kirby-mcp:"^1.15" instead.

The installer adds project-local runtime commands, a small Kirby plugin adapter, and .kirby-mcp/mcp.json. The MCP library stays in vendor/. Maintenance explains updates and removal.

Connecting over HTTP? Use the remote setup guide, including production installation, bearer tokens, and OAuth for Claude connectors. Want reference access without a project? See global reference mode.

Connect your agent

Run these commands from the Kirby project root. They save an absolute executable path and project root so the client can find both when launched elsewhere.

Claude Code

claude mcp add kirby -- "$PWD/vendor/bin/kirby-mcp" "--project=$PWD"

Codex CLI

codex mcp add kirby -- "$PWD/vendor/bin/kirby-mcp" "--project=$PWD"

Codex saves MCP registrations at user scope. Use a distinct server name instead of kirby for each project.

Cursor and other clients

For Cursor, add this to .cursor/mcp.json, replacing both paths:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kirby": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/project/vendor/bin/kirby-mcp",
      "args": ["--project=/absolute/path/to/project"]
    }
  }
}

For other clients, configure the same command and arguments as a stdio MCP server. Reload your client if it does not discover the server immediately.

Usage

Start with a task

Try one of these prompts in your connected agent:

Use Kirby MCP to give me a tour of this project's blueprints, templates, and plugins.

Use Kirby MCP to plan a contact form using this project's conventions.

Read the about page with Kirby MCP and help me update its title.

Search the Kirby knowledge base for collection filtering. Check the official docs online if needed.

Asking for a plan is a useful way to inspect the project before making changes. Your agent can also read resources such as kirby://glossary/collection directly.

Use bundled skills

Skills give your agent task-specific guidance: project tours, page scaffolding, Panel blueprints, content migrations, routing, plugins, forms, translations, security, and more. See the skills catalog.

Copy them into your agent's skills directory. For Claude Code:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
rsync -a vendor/bnomei/kirby-mcp/skills/ ~/.claude/skills/

For Codex, use ~/.codex/skills/ instead. Restart the agent after copying; repeat the copy after package updates to refresh the skills.

Debug a page

Add a dump where you need to inspect a value:

mcp_dump($page->title()->value())->label('Page title');

Ask your agent to render the page with kirby_render_page, then read the captured values with kirby_dump_log_tail using the returned traceId. Dumps are written to .kirby-mcp/dumps.jsonl; secret masking is on by default, but inspect output before sharing it.

For deeper inspection, query execution is enabled with confirmation. PHP eval is disabled until you enable it.

IDE helpers

Ask your agent to check or generate IDE helpers, or run:

vendor/bin/kirby-mcp ide:status
vendor/bin/kirby-mcp ide:generate --write

Generated helpers live in .kirby-mcp/. Without --write, generation is a dry run.

Panel activity indicator

See recent MCP activity at the top center of the Kirby Panel:

The indicator is off by default. To turn it on, set this in .kirby-mcp/mcp.json alongside your other settings:

{
  "activity": { "enabled": true }
}

Run vendor/bin/kirby-mcp update to refresh the Panel assets, then reload the Panel. Kirby admins see the robot after a successful tool call or resource read. It fades from orange to grey and disappears after five minutes; hover, focus, or tap to see the elapsed time.

It shows recent activity, not whether an agent is connected or currently working. Activity details cover timing and shared-filesystem requirements.

Tools and resources

Tools let your agent inspect or act; resources bring reference material and project data into its context. These are the project server's capabilities; global reference mode exposes only the research subset, and remote permissions can narrow access.

Tools

• Project orientation: kirby_init, kirby_info, kirby_roots, kirby_composer_audit, kirby_cli_version.
• Blueprints: kirby_blueprints_index, kirby_blueprints_loaded, kirby_blueprint_read.
• Code and extensions: kirby_templates_index, kirby_snippets_index, kirby_collections_index, kirby_controllers_index, kirby_models_index, kirby_plugins_index, kirby_routes_index.
• Read content: kirby_read_page_content, kirby_read_file_content, kirby_read_site_content, kirby_read_user_content.
• Update content: kirby_update_page_content, kirby_update_file_content, kirby_update_site_content, kirby_update_user_content.
• Research and discovery: kirby_search, kirby_online, kirby_online_plugins, kirby_tool_suggest.
• Render and debug: kirby_render_page, kirby_dump_log_tail, kirby_query_dot, kirby_eval, kirby_run_cli_command.
• Runtime and IDE support: kirby_runtime_status, kirby_runtime_install, kirby_cache_clear, kirby_ide_helpers_status, kirby_generate_ide_helpers.

Writes and execution follow the defaults and safety controls. See the tool reference for individual descriptions.

Resources

Resources are read-only. Replace {…} with the item you want; the resource reference explains IDs and URI encoding.

• Bundled knowledge: kirby://kb, kirby://kb/{path}, kirby://glossary, kirby://glossary/{term}.
• Field and blueprint update guides: kirby://fields/update-schema, kirby://field/{type}/update-schema, kirby://blueprints/update-schema, kirby://blueprint/{type}/update-schema.
• Panel field and section references: kirby://fields, kirby://field/{type}, kirby://sections, kirby://section/{type}.
• Hooks and extensions: kirby://hooks, kirby://hook/{name}, kirby://extensions, kirby://extension/{name}.
• Project and configuration: kirby://info, kirby://roots, kirby://composer, kirby://config/{option}, kirby://blueprint/{encodedId}.
• Content: kirby://page/content/{encodedIdOrUuid}, kirby://file/content/{encodedIdOrUuid}, kirby://site/content, kirby://user/content/{encodedIdOrEmail}.
• CLI reference: kirby://commands, kirby://cli/command/{command}.
• Tool discovery and examples: kirby://tools, kirby://tool-examples.
• Utilities and extras: kirby://uuid/new, kirby://susie/{phase}/{step}.

Defaults and safety

You can start with the installed configuration. Change settings only for the capabilities you need.

Local MCP access is trusted access to your project. Confirmation guards MCP operations, not everything your coding agent can do through its other tools. Enabled PHP eval and generic CLI execution are not sandboxed. Keep .kirby-mcp/ outside your public document root or deny web access to it.

[!WARNING] Retrieved documents can contain prompt injection. Review proposed changes and do not assume an agent's output or a confirmation prompt makes an action safe.

For custom settings, use the configuration reference. Before exposing the server remotely, read the authentication and permission boundaries.

Maintenance

After upgrading the package, refresh the installed runtime files:

composer update bnomei/kirby-mcp
vendor/bin/kirby-mcp update

update overwrites the copied runtime commands and plugin adapter, but preserves your configuration. They normally live in site/commands/mcp/ and site/plugins/kirby-mcp/; custom Kirby roots are respected.

To uninstall, remove those two directories and the Composer dependency. Delete .kirby-mcp/ only if you also want to remove configuration, dumps, generated helpers, and remote authentication state. Remove the server entry from your MCP client and any HTTP routes you registered.

Troubleshooting

• Project not found: run from the project root or pass --project=/absolute/path/to/project.
• Runtime tools fail: run vendor/bin/kirby-mcp install and ask the agent to check kirby_runtime_status.
• CLI command blocked: review cli.allow, cli.allowWrite, and cli.deny in the configuration reference.
• Wrong host-specific config: set KIRBY_MCP_HOST or kirby.host.
• No dump output: check dumps.enabled, the dump file's permissions, and the render's traceId.
• Remote connection fails: use the HTTP troubleshooting checklist.
• Global server fails to start: check the absolute executable path.

Server diagnostics go to stderr. Include the client version and relevant error when reporting a problem; remove secrets first. See compatibility notes for the current CMS baseline and known upstream limitations.

Documentation

For development and contributions, see Contributing and Testing. Release history lives in the Changelog; report vulnerabilities using the Security policy.

Disclaimer

This MCP server is provided "as is" with no guarantee. Use it at your own risk and always test it yourself before using it in a production environment. If you find any issues, please create a new issue.

License

MIT

It is discouraged to use this MCP server in any project that promotes racism, sexism, homophobia, animal abuse, violence or any other form of hate speech.