Muster: Universal Control Plane for AI Agents

In German, Muster means "pattern" or "sample." This project provides the building blocks for AI agents to discover patterns and collect samples from any digital environment. It gives them a universal protocol to interact with the world.

Muster is a universal control plane built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that solves the MCP server management problem for platform engineers and AI agents.

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The Platform Engineer's Dilemma

As a platform engineer, you interact with countless services: Kubernetes, Prometheus, Grafana, Flux, ArgoCD, cloud providers, and custom tooling. While tools like Terraform and Kubernetes operators provide unified orchestration interfaces, debugging and monitoring still requires jumping between different tools and contexts.

The MCP Revolution: LLM agents (in VSCode, Cursor, etc.) + MCP servers should solve this by giving agents direct access to your tools. There are already many excellent MCP servers available (Kubernetes, Prometheus, Grafana, Flux, etc.).

But there's a problem:

• Adding all MCP servers to your agent pollutes the context and increases costs
• Turning servers on/off manually is tedious and error-prone
• Tool discovery becomes overwhelming as your toolkit grows
• No coordination between different MCP servers and their prerequisites

The Solution: Intelligent MCP Aggregation

Muster solves this by creating a meta-MCP server that manages all your MCP servers and provides your agent with intelligent tool discovery capabilities.

📖 Learn More: MCP Aggregation Deep Dive | System Architecture

How It Works

1. muster serve starts the control plane that manages your MCP server processes
2. Configure muster agent as an MCP server in your IDE
3. Your agent gets meta-tools like list_tools, filter_tools, call_tool
4. Agent discovers and uses tools dynamically based on the current task

graph TD
    subgraph "Your IDE (VSCode/Cursor)"
        Agent["🤖 AI Agent"]
        IDE["IDE MCP Config"]
    end

    subgraph "Muster Control Plane"
        MusterAgent["🎯 muster agent<br/>(Meta-MCP Server)"]
        MusterServe["⚙️ muster serve<br/>(Process Manager)"]

        subgraph "Managed MCP Servers"
            K8s["🔷 Kubernetes<br/>(kubectl, helm)"]
            Prom["📊 Prometheus<br/>(metrics, alerts)"]
            Grafana["📈 Grafana<br/>(dashboards)"]
            Flux["🔄 Flux<br/>(GitOps)"]
        end
    end

    Agent <-->|"MCP Protocol"| MusterAgent
    MusterAgent <--> MusterServe
    MusterServe <--> K8s
    MusterServe <--> Prom
    MusterServe <--> Grafana
    MusterServe <--> Flux

📖 Learn More: Component Interaction Diagram | System Overview

Core Capabilities

🧠 Intelligent Tool Discovery

Your agent can now:

# Discover available tools dynamically
agent: "What Kubernetes tools are available?"
→ filter tools {pattern="kubernetes"}

# Find the right tool for the task
agent: "I need to check pod logs"
→ filter tools {description="logs"}

# Execute tools on-demand
agent: "Show me failing pods in default namespace"
→ call x_kubernetes_list {"resourceType": "pods", "namespace": "default"}

📖 Learn More: MCP Tools Reference | Tool Discovery Guide

🚀 Dynamic MCP Server Management

• Lifecycle Control: Start, stop, restart MCP servers on demand
• Health Monitoring: Automatic health checks and recovery
• Configuration Management: Hot-reload server configurations
• Local Process Deployment: Local processes (local) for MCP server execution

📖 Learn More: MCP Server Management | Configuration Guide

🛡️ Smart Access Control

• Tool Filtering: Block destructive tools by default (override with --yolo)
• Project-Based Control: Different tool sets for different projects
• Context Optimization: Only load tools when needed

📖 Learn More: Security Configuration

🏗️ Advanced Orchestration

Workflows: Deterministic Task Automation

Once your agent discovers how to complete a task, persist it as a workflow:

name: debug-failing-pods
steps:
  - id: find-pods
    tool: x_kubernetes_get_pods
    args:
      namespace: "{{ .namespace }}"
      status: "failed"
  - id: get-logs
    tool: x_kubernetes_get_logs
    args:
      pod: "{{ steps.find-pods.podName }}"
      lines: 100

Benefits:

• Reduce AI costs (deterministic execution)
• Faster results (no re-discovery)
• Consistent debugging across team members

📖 Learn More: Workflow Creation Guide | Workflow Component Architecture

ServiceClasses: Handle Prerequisites Automatically

Many MCP servers need setup (port-forwarding, authentication, etc.). ServiceClasses define these prerequisites:

name: prometheus-access
startTool: x_kubernetes_port_forward
args:
  service: "prometheus-server"
  namespace: "monitoring"
  localPort: 9090
healthCheck:
  url: "http://localhost:9090/api/v1/status"

Complete Integration Example:

1. ServiceClass creates port-forwarding to Prometheus
2. MCP Server configuration uses the forwarded port
3. Workflow orchestrates: setup → query → cleanup
4. Agent executes everything seamlessly

📖 Learn More: ServiceClass Patterns | Service Configuration | Services Component Guide

Quick Start

🤖 AI Agent Users (5 minutes)

Connect Muster to your IDE for smart tool access:

📖 AI Agent Setup Guide

🏗️ Platform Engineers (15 minutes)

Set up Muster for infrastructure management:

📖 Platform Setup Guide

👩‍💻 Contributors (10 minutes)

Configure your development environment:

📖 Development Setup

Installation

Homebrew (macOS)

brew tap giantswarm/muster
brew install muster

Manual Installation

git clone https://github.com/giantswarm/muster.git
cd muster && go build .

📖 Learn More: Installation Guide | Local Demo

Configure MCP Servers

Create kubernetes-server.yaml:

apiVersion: muster.io/v1
kind: MCPServer
name: kubernetes
spec:
  type: localCommand
  command: ["mcp-kubernetes"]
  autoStart: true

Register it:

./muster create mcpserver kubernetes.yaml

Connect Your AI Agent

Configure your IDE to use Muster's agent as an MCP server:

Cursor/VSCode settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "muster": {
      "command": "muster",
      "args": ["standalone"]
    }
  }
}

📖 Learn More: AI Agent Integration | Cursor Advanced Setup

Let Your Agent Discover Tools

Your agent now has meta-capabilities:

• list_tools: Show all available tools
• filter_tools: Find tools by name/description
• describe_tool: Get detailed tool information
• call_tool: Execute any tool dynamically

📖 Learn More: Complete MCP Tools Reference | CLI Command Reference

Advanced Platform Engineering Scenarios

Scenario 1: Multi-Cluster Debugging

ServiceClass for cluster access

name: cluster-login
version: "1.0.0"
serviceConfig:
  serviceType: "auth"
  args:
    cluster:
      type: "string"
      required: true
  lifecycleTools:
    start: { tool: "x_teleport_kube_login" }

Workflow to compare pods on two clusters

# Workflow for cross-cluster investigation
name: compare-pod-on-staging-prod
input_schema:
  type: "object"
  properties:
    namespace: { type: "string" }
    pod: { type: "string" }
  required: ["namespace", "pod"]
steps:
  - id: staging-context
    tool: core_service_create
    args:
      serviceClassName: "cluster-login"
      name: "staging-context"
      params:
        cluster: "staging"
  - id: prod-context
    tool: core_service_create
    args:
      serviceClassName: "cluster-login"
      name: "staging-context"
      params:
        cluster: "production"
  - id: wait-for-step
  - id: compare-resources
    tool: workflow_compare_pods_on_clusters
    args:

Scenario 2: Full Observability Stack

# Prometheus access with port-forwarding
name: prometheus-tunnel
startTool: k8s_port_forward
args:
  service: "prometheus-server"
  localPort: 9090

---
# Grafana dashboard access
name: grafana-tunnel
startTool: k8s_port_forward
args:
  service: "grafana"
  localPort: 3000
---
# Complete monitoring workflow
name: investigation-setup
steps:
  - id: setup-prometheus
    serviceClass: prometheus-tunnel
  - id: setup-grafana
    serviceClass: grafana-tunnel
  - id: configure-prometheus-mcp
    tool: core_mcpserver_create
    args:
      name: "prometheus"
      type: "localCommand"
      command: ["mcp-server-prometheus"]
      env:
        PROMETHEUS_URL: "http://localhost:9090"

📖 Learn More: Advanced Scenarios | Configuration Examples

Benefits for Platform Teams

Cost Optimization

• Reduced AI token usage: Tools loaded only when needed
• Deterministic workflows: No re-discovery costs
• Efficient context: Smart tool filtering

Team Collaboration

• GitOps workflows: Share debugging patterns via Git
• Consistent tooling: Same tool access across team members
• Knowledge preservation: Workflows capture tribal knowledge

Operational Excellence

• Faster incident response: Pre-built investigation workflows
• Reduced context switching: All tools through one interface
• Automated prerequisites: ServiceClasses handle setup complexity

📖 Learn More: Core Benefits | Design Principles

Documentation Hub

🚀 Getting Started

• Quick Start Guide - Get up and running in minutes
• AI Agent Setup - IDE integration guide
• Platform Setup - Infrastructure setup
• Local Demo - Try Muster locally

🛠️ How-To Guides

• Workflow Creation - Build automation workflows
• ServiceClass Patterns - Manage service dependencies
• MCP Server Management - Configure external tools
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• AI Troubleshooting - AI-specific debugging

📚 Reference Documentation

• CLI Commands - Complete command reference
• Configuration - Configuration schemas
• API Reference - REST and MCP APIs
• MCP Tools - Available tools catalog
• CRDs - Kubernetes Custom Resources

🏗️ Architecture & Concepts

• System Architecture - How Muster works
• Component Overview - Individual components
• MCP Aggregation - Core aggregation logic
• Design Decisions - Architecture decisions
• Problem Statement - Why Muster exists

🚀 Operations & Deployment

• Installation - Production deployment
• Security Configuration - Security best practices

👥 Contributing

• Development Setup - Dev environment
• Testing Framework - Testing guidelines
• Code Guidelines - Development standards

Community & Support

• Contributing Guide: How to contribute to Muster
• Issue Tracker: Bug reports and feature requests
• Discussions: Community Q&A and use cases

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Muster is a Giant Swarm project, built to empower platform engineers and AI agents with intelligent infrastructure control.