WxMCPServer

WxMCPServer is a webMethods Integration Server (IS) package that implements an MCP Server (current as of 2025-06-18) for IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration (IWHI). It requires either webMethods Integration Server or webMethods Microservices Runtime for hosting.

What's New

v1.3.2 (February 2, 2026)

• Early support for MCP tools implemented by local webMethods Integration Server flows
• Various bug fixes

v1.3.1 (January 6, 2026)

• Introduced new header names, please refer to latest WxMCPServer 1.5 API specification
• Introduced new webMethods IS endpoint https://<server>:<port>/v1_5_0/mcp
• Introduced on-demand loading of tools. If tools are not presented in local cache (i.e. due to refreshing the package), they are loaded even without enforcing "tools/list"

Table of Contents

• 1. Overview
• 2. Key Benefits
• 3. Requirements
  • 3.1 Implementing Tool Catalog on webMethods API Management
  • 3.2 Implementing Tool Catalog on Azure API Management
  • 3.3 Implementing Tool Catalog on IBM API Connect
• 4. Roles and Responsibilities
• 5. Quick Start
  • 5.1 MCP Tool Catalog API
  • 5.2 webMethods Integration Server
  • 5.3 Installing WxMCPServer
  • 5.4 Configuring WxMCPServer
  • 5.5 Protecting WxMCPServer
• 6. Integration Server Global Variables
• 7. Configuration Examples
  • 7.1 Claude Desktop — stdio | npx | API Key
  • 7.2 Claude Desktop — stdio | npx | OAuth Style
  • 7.3 IBM watsonx Orchestrate | Langflow — stdio | uvx | API Key
  • 7.4 VS Code MCP Server — Streamable HTTP
• 8. Limitations

1. Overview

WxMCPServer enables you to expose your existing APIs, including their existing API policies, as MCP Tools through an enterprise-grade integration platform.

It leverages your existing API management infrastructure:

• API Catalog
  Introspect API Management applications or Developer Portals for APIs to be exposed as MCP tools
• API Gateway
  Enforce policies such as logging, authentication, and authorization

In the current solution approach, the MCP Tool Catalog API is grouped together with business APIs into an API product. This API product is then used to retrieve metadata (including the OpenAPI specification) for all APIs in the product.

2. Key Benefits

• Reuse existing corporate APIs as AI-accessible MCP tools
• Retain existing API Gateway security and policy enforcement
• Integrate seamlessly with API catalogs for API discovery
• One API key or access token can access the MCP Tool Catalog API and all business APIs in the same API product

3. Requirements

WxMCPServer requires IBM webMethods Integration Server or IBM webMethods Microservices Runtime as the server (tested with v11.1).
To integrate with API Management solutions, you must implement the MCP Tool Catalog API.

Instructions are provided (along with pre-configured assets) on how to implement this API on various systems:

3.1 Implementing Tool Catalog on webMethods API Management

Detailed description for webMethods API Management

3.2 Implementing Tool Catalog on Azure API Management

Detailed description for Azure API Management

3.3 Implementing Tool Catalog on IBM API Connect

Detailed description for IBM API Connect

The approach is generally open for 3rd party API Management solutions ("Federated API Management").

4. Roles and Responsibilities

• MCP Host and MCP Client External components (not part of this solution) essential for using the tools; examples include Claude Desktop or Langflow
• WxMCPServer webMethods IS package implementing the MCP Server
• API Gateway Hosts business APIs (to be exposed as MCP tools) and the MCP Tool Catalog API to extract API metadata from the API Catalog
• API Catalog Allows AI developers to request access to API products and retrieve API keys or OAuth credentials

The following graphic provides an overview of the architecture:

5. Quick Start

5.1 MCP Tool Catalog API

• First thing to do is to decide from which API management solution you want to fetch the tools (aka APIs from existing API product). Follow these instructions.
• Test the API isolated before continuing with WxMCPServer

5.2 webMethods Integration Server

• If you are a webMethods Integration Server customer, you can re-use your existing Integration Server runtime
• If you do not have a webMethods Integration Server yet, you can download webMethods Service Designer together with the embedded development runtime of Integration Server.
• If you are working with IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration in SaaS, you can re-use Cloud runtime or register a new Edge Runtime

5.3 Installing package WxMCPServer on webMethods Integration Server

• If you are running locally you can use webMethods Service Designer and the webMethods Package Registry to load the package WxMCPServer

• If you are running inside IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration (SaaS) you can add this GitHub repository as external package to your IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration project

5.4 Configuring WxMCPServer

• Use the global variables to define MCP server-wide settings. Use the API specific configuration headers to overwrite these settings per MCP client.

5.5 Protecting WxMCPServer implementation

If you do not run a local MCP server, but a shared one used for enterprise scenarios, you should put the WxMCPServer API on the API Gateway in front of the WxMCPServer implementation. Ideally you put it into the same API product as the MCP Tool Catalog API, so that all APIs share the same credentials ("Invoke what you can list and vice versa"). See full enterprise architecture below:

There is a pre-configured archive for webMethods API Gateway, that implements WxMCPServer API for webMethods API Gateway

5.5 Running WxMCPServer in Container / Kubernetes

If you want to run WxMCPServer in a container, you can use the Dockerfile and README-k8s.md as a starting point. The example Kubernetes deployment is based on Microservice Runtime v11.1.

Step-by-step (more instructions can be found in README-k8s.md):

# Pull base image from wM container registry
docker pull ibmwebmethods.azurecr.io/webmethods-microservicesruntime:11.1
# Build custom Docker image
docker build -t wxmcpserver .
# start your kubernetes cluster
# execute k8s script
k8s/deploy-local.sh

Connect IBM Bob to the MCP server:

"wxmcp-http-server": {
    "url": "http://mcp.k8s.orb.local/wxmcp/mcp",
    "type": "streamable-http",
    "headers": {
        "x-auth-type": "API_KEY",
        "x-tool-catalog-base-url": "http://apigw1015-apigateway-admin.apigateway.svc.cluster.local:5555/gateway/WxMCP-Tool-Catalog/1.1",
        "x-api-key": "x-Gateway-APIKey",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "x-api-key-headername": "x-Gateway-APIKey"
    }
}

6. Integration Server Global Variables

You can set default values for WxMCPServer, which are used if no corresponding HTTP headers are sent.

Note: MCP client HTTP headers always take precedence over default values.

7. Configuration Examples

7.1 Claude Desktop — stdio | npx | API Key

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-iwhi-apikey-demo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://<Integration Server Host>:<Integration Server Port>/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-auth-type:API_KEY",
        "--header",
        "x-api-key:<The API Key>",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-catalog-base-url:https://<webMethods API Gateway Host>:<webMethods API Gateway Port>/gateway/WxMCP-Tool-Catalog/1.1",
        "--header",
        "x-api-key-headername:<Your API Key header - i.e. x-Gateway-APIKey for webMethods>",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-header-prefix:header_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-query-prefix:query_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-path-prefix:path_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-response-mode:structured",
        "--header",
        "x-response-code:http"
      ]
    }
  }
}

7.2 Claude Desktop — stdio | npx | OAUTH Style

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-iwhi-oauth-demo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://<Integration Server Host>:<Integration Server Port>/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-auth-type:OAUTH",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-catalog-base-url:https://<webMethods API Gateway Host>:<webMethods API Gateway Port>/gateway/WxMCP-Tool-Catalog/1.1",
        "--header",
        "x-oauth-bearer-token:<The bearer token>",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-header-prefix:header_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-query-prefix:query_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-path-prefix:path_",
        "--header",
        "x-tool-response-mode:structured",
        "--header",
        "x-response-code:http"
      ]
    }
  }
}

7.3 IBM watsonx Orchestrate | Langflow - stdio | uvx | API Key

uvx mcp-proxy 
--headers x-api-key <Your API Key header - i.e. x-Gateway-APIKey for webMethods>
--headers x-tool-catalog-base-url https://<webMethods API Gateway Host>:<webMethods API Gateway Port>/gateway/WxMCP-Tool-Catalog/1.1
http://<Integration Server Host>:<Integration Server Port>/mcp --transport streamablehttp

7.4 VS Code MCP Server - Streamable HTTP

{
  "servers": {
    "my-wxmcp-http-server": {
      "url": "http://<Integration Server Host>:<Integration Server Port>/mcp",
      "type": "http",
      "headers": {
        "x-auth-type": "API_KEY",
        "x-tool-catalog-base-url": "https://<webMethods API Gateway Host>:<webMethods API Gateway Port>/gateway/WxMCP-Tool-Catalog/1.1",
        "x-api-key": "<Your API Key header - i.e. x-Gateway-APIKey for webMethods>",
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "x-api-key-headername": "x-Gateway-APIKey"
      }
    }
  },
  "inputs": []
}

8. Limitations

• Only "Content-Type": "application/json" is supported for sending and receiving data to APIs.
• The Token-Passtrough anti-pattern will be addressed shortly by introducing token swapping capabilities