MCP in IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0.7: turning the admin server into an MCP host

Matthias Blomme ⏱ 47 min
  • ace
  • mcp
  • model-context-protocol
  • ai
  • integration
  • server.conf.yaml
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A big shoutout goes to Kim Meynendonckx. This post has been very much inspired by him (and maybe I kinda beat him to the punch in writing it).

IBM shipped a cheeky little feature in the latest ACE release. Hidden, or at least undocumented.

ACE 13.0.7.0 brings with it an MCP server inside the IntegrationServer runtime. It’s configured via a new MCP: block in server.conf.yaml and has two sibling stanzas: Admin and Runtime.

  • MCP.Runtime exposes deployed Toolkit REST API operations as MCP tools , the headline 13.0.7 feature.
  • MCP.Admin exposes a set of administration tools (list applications, list policies, etc., all read-only) so an MCP-enabled agent can introspect the integration server itself. This is the one the IBM docs currently say nothing about.

This post walks through enabling MCP.Admin on a vanilla standalone integration server, hitting it from both MCP Inspector (the official GUI) and plain curl, and triggering every MCP feature available. For each tool you get the description the server publishes, the JSON request, an Inspector screenshot, the curl equivalent, and the actual JSON response from a real integration server populated with applications, policies, and credentials.

No auth in this post. MCP.Admin is unauthenticated by default, and we’re leaving it that way to keep the examples short. Anything reachable beyond your laptop should set authentication and serve over TLS with a proper certificate, see the auth section at the end.

Assumptions

  • IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0.7.0 or later installed locally.
  • You can start a standalone integration server with a writable work directory (for this blog I’ll be using c:\temp\MCP_SERVER).
  • Node.js available so npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector works.
  • curl available (Windows 10+ ships it, on PowerShell call curl.exe so you don’t get the Invoke-WebRequest alias).
  • You’ve deployed at least one application / policy / credential into the runtime, otherwise there is nothing to report on.

Step 1: Enable MCP.Admin in overrides

The server.conf.yaml ACE ships is large and rebuilt on every fixpack, so you don’t want to edit it in place. The clean pattern is to drop a tiny server.conf.yaml into the work directory’s overrides/ folder. Having a separate file with just the deltas to get your server running is also handy if you are thinking about versioning your config.

# c:\temp\MCP_SERVER\overrides\server.conf.yaml
MCP:
  Admin:
    enabled: true       # default false
    port: 7650          # default 7650; leave as-is unless 7650 is taken

Two properties is all the MCP.Admin block has on 13.0.7.0. Enabling the MCP server and setting the port. TLS-wise it inherits from RestAdminListener, so if your admin listener is on HTTPS (and on a default install it is), MCP.Admin is HTTPS too.

Restart the integration server after enabling the MCP. You should see two listener-start log lines, one for the admin REST endpoint and one for MCP:

2026-05-19 13:48:54.290436: BIP3132I: The HTTP Listener has started listening on port '7777' for 'RestAdmin https' connections.
2026-05-19 13:48:54.308828: BIP3132I: The HTTP Listener has started listening on port '7650' for 'MCP Streamable https' connections.

The port 7777 for RestAdmin https is what I happen to have configured (since I am running multiple servers). New Integration Servers default to 7600.

Step 2: Hook up a client

Two ways to drive the MCP server (there are more, but I chose one graphical and one CLI option). Pick one, or use both side by side. I’ll show both so you can compare.

MCP Inspector is a Node.js developer tool for testing and debugging MCP servers.

The MCP Inspector consists of two main components that work together:

  • MCP Inspector Client (MCPI): A React-based web UI that provides an interactive interface for testing and debugging MCP servers
  • MCP Proxy (MCPP): A Node.js server that acts as a protocol bridge, connecting the web UI to MCP servers via various transport methods (stdio, SSE, streamable-http)

(Yes, I took this description from their GitHub).

Basically it gives you a graphical interface and shows you what tools an MCP server offers. Just for those situations when you encounter an undocumented MCP.

For my local setup, I needed to start by telling Node.js that it should ignore the ACE self-signed cert. If you don’t, you might encounter an error like this, so be warned.

img.png

set NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

Or if you prefer PowerShell:

$env:NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED = "0"
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

You can always disable ssl on the RestAdminListener level completely, but then nothing is SSL secured, and I would have a lot less to write about. So let’s keep that one on.

After installation, the Inspector spawns a local UI at http://localhost:6274/.

img_1.png

To talk to the ACE MCP, we need some configuration:

FieldValue
Transport TypeStreamable HTTP (not SSE , ACE doesn’t accept SSE)
URLhttps://localhost:7650/mcp
Connection TypeLeave this set to “Via Proxy”
Authenticationleave collapsed
Configurationdefaults are fine

Click Connect and the status changes to Connected with App Connect Enterprise / Version: 13.0.7.0 shown in the left pane. The Tools tab is what we are interested in.

img_2.png

Curl

MCP Streamable HTTP is simply JSON-RPC over a stateful HTTP session. If you know what you need, then you can very easily use curl, instead of an additional tool. Three things you need to know:

  1. The first call must be initialize. The server’s response includes an Mcp-Session-Id header.
  2. All subsequent calls must echo that Mcp-Session-Id header back.
  3. The server sometimes responds as text/event-stream (SSE) and sometimes as plain JSON depending on the call , send Accept: application/json, text/event-stream for each call.

Below you can see the full handshake in PowerShell, capturing the session ID for later calls:

# Using curl.exe here. Invoke-WebRequest -SkipCertificateCheck is PowerShell 7+ only,
# see the "PowerShell 5.1 doesn't have -SkipCertificateCheck" section under Problems.
$base = 'https://localhost:7650/mcp'
$initBody = '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-06-18","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"blog-tester","version":"1.0"}}}'

# initialize , capture headers with -D - and pull the Mcp-Session-Id out
# Body goes in via stdin (--data-binary '@-') to dodge PowerShell 5.1's broken
# native-arg-passing for strings containing " characters.
$out = $initBody | curl.exe -sk -D - -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  --data-binary '@-'
$session = ($out | Select-String -CaseSensitive:$false '^mcp-session-id:').Line -replace '(?i)^mcp-session-id:\s*',''
$session

# initialized notification (no response body expected)
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"notifications/initialized"}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-' | Out-Null

Bash equivalent, same pattern with curl -D - to capture headers:

BASE='https://localhost:7650/mcp'
SESSION=$(curl -sk -D - -X POST "$BASE" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-06-18","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"blog-tester","version":"1.0"}}}' \
  | tr -d '\r' | awk 'BEGIN{IGNORECASE=1} /^mcp-session-id:/{print $2}')

curl -sk -X POST "$BASE" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $SESSION" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"notifications/initialized"}' > /dev/null

From here on, every tools/list or tools/call is just another POST request with Mcp-Session-Id: $SESSION. Each tool section below shows only the tools/call body and the response, you reuse the same initial handshake once per shell.

One MCP client at a time. ACE 13.0.7.0 has a bug where the integration server only accepts one MCP client per server lifetime, the first one wins. Every subsequent client trying to initialize gets back a generic 500 Internal Server Error. This took me a while to figure out, so hopefully I can save you the trouble. Restart the integration server to switch from Inspector to curl (or vice versa). See the Only one MCP client at a time section for the technical mumbo jumbo.

Step 3: Tools registered by MCP.Admin

Now we get to the point: what MCP.Admin actually gives us. On 13.0.7.0, MCP.Admin exposes six tools. Each one has a short name (the protocol identifier you send in tools/call) and a title (the English sentence Inspector shows you):

#nametitle
1infoProvide basic information about the connected server
2list_integrationsList the Applications, Rest APIS, Services and Libraries of an integration runtime, together with their state
3list_application_needsList any deployment or runtime resources this application needs
4list_policiesList the policies of an integration runtime
5list_credentialsList the credentials of an integration runtime
6describe_message_flowReturn a structure with information detailing a message flow

What you need to know:

  • The protocol-level name you POST in tools/call is the short identifier (info, list_integrations, …). The English sentence is just the title Inspector displays. Inspector handles this for you when you click a tool. In curl you have to send the short form.
  • None of the six tools is annotated with the standard MCP hints (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint, openWorldHint). Inspector renders them all as ✗ , but they’re all clearly read-only, so this is just missing annotation metadata.

@IBM, there is still some room for improvement here 😉

I’ll be going over each tool, showing:

  1. The Inspector screenshot of running the tool.
  2. The tools/call.
  3. The actual JSON response from a real integration server with these resources deployed.

img_3.png

I don’t want to get your hopes up (and maybe I should have mentioned this sooner), but … The MCP only gives you static information about your Integration Server, there is no interactivity, no CRUD and no logging or debugging tools.

3.1 Provide basic information about the connected server

This MCP tool gives you information about the connected runtime, such as architecture, version and startup time.

Inspector

Select the Provide basic information about the connected server tool in the middle panel → Run Tool (no arguments required).

img_4.png

Curl

Run the following curl, after performing the handshake, with $SESSION set (see Step 2).

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"info","arguments":{}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

Response (the wire format wraps the payload in result.content[0].text as an escaped string; unwrapped for readability):

{
  "name": "MCP_SERVER",
  "type": "integrationServer",
  "metadata": {
    "forceServerHTTPS": false,
    "name": "MCP_SERVER",
    "type": "IntegrationServer",
    "platformArchitecture": "AMD64",
    "platformName": "Windows 10 Pro",
    "version": "13.0.7.0",
    "isOptimized": false,
    "isRunning": true,
    "monitoring": "inactive",
    "restAdminListenerPort": 7777,
    "serviceTraceOn": false,
    "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
    "userTraceOn": false
  }
}

3.2 List the Applications, Rest APIs, Services and Libraries of an integration runtime, together with their state

This MCP tool gives you information about your deployed resources, including some metadata such as state, last-modified time, and startup time.

Inspector

Select the List the Applications, Rest APIS, Services and Libraries of an integration runtime, together with their state tool in the middle panel → Run Tool (no arguments required).

img_5.png

Curl

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":3,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_integrations","arguments":{}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

Response (unwrapped from result.content[0].text):

Full response (click to expand) 
{
  "applications": {
    "name": "applications",
    "type": "applications",
    "metadata": {},
    "children": [
      {
        "name": "CallableApp",
        "type": "application",
        "metadata": {
          "monitoring": "inactive",
          "lastModified": "2026-05-19 14:09:52",
          "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
          "state": "started"
        },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows",    "type": "subFlows",    "metadata": {} },
          { "name": "resources",   "type": "resources",   "metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "com\\mbl\\test\\CallableFlow_HelloWorld.esql", "type": "resource", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "libraries",   "type": "libraries",   "metadata": {} },
          { "name": "messageflows","type": "messageFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "com.mbl.test.CallableFlow", "type": "messageFlow", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "statistics",  "type": "statistics",  "metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "snapshot", "type": "snapshot", "metadata": {} },
              { "name": "archive",  "type": "archive",  "metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "TestApp",
        "type": "application",
        "metadata": {
          "monitoring": "inactive",
          "lastModified": "2026-05-19 14:17:04",
          "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
          "state": "started"
        },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows", "type": "subFlows", "metadata": {} },
          { "name": "resources","type": "resources","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "JEN_inputMessage.xml", "type": "resource", "metadata": {} },
              { "name": "TestFlow_Compute.esql","type": "resource", "metadata": {} },
              { "name": "TEST_XML.json",        "type": "resource", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "libraries", "type": "libraries", "metadata": {} },
          { "name": "messageflows","type":"messageFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [{ "name": "TestFlow", "type": "messageFlow", "metadata": {} }]
          },
          { "name": "statistics","type":"statistics","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "snapshot","type":"snapshot","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "archive", "type":"archive", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "TestDates",
        "type": "application",
        "metadata": {
          "monitoring": "inactive",
          "lastModified": "2026-05-19 14:10:08",
          "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
          "state": "started"
        },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows","type":"subFlows","metadata": {} },
          { "name": "resources","type":"resources","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "TestDates_Compute.esql",   "type": "resource", "metadata": {} },
              { "name": "TestDates_inputMessage.xml","type":"resource", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "libraries","type":"libraries","metadata": {} },
          { "name": "messageflows","type":"messageFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [{ "name": "TestDates", "type": "messageFlow", "metadata": {} }]
          },
          { "name": "statistics","type":"statistics","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "snapshot","type":"snapshot","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "archive", "type":"archive", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "TestPGP",
        "type": "application",
        "metadata": {
          "monitoring": "inactive",
          "lastModified": "2026-04-03 15:32:28",
          "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
          "state": "started"
        },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows","type":"subFlows","metadata": {} },
          { "name": "resources","type":"resources","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "pgp\\decrypt_inputMessage.xml","type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "pgp\\encrypt_inputMessage.xml","type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "pgp\\testpgp_Compute.esql",    "type":"resource","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "libraries","type":"libraries","metadata": {} },
          { "name": "messageflows","type":"messageFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "pgp.decrypt","type":"messageFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "pgp.encrypt","type":"messageFlow","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "statistics","type":"statistics","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "snapshot","type":"snapshot","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "archive", "type":"archive", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "restapis": {
    "name": "rest-apis",
    "type": "restApis",
    "metadata": {},
    "children": [
      {
        "name": "HelloWorld",
        "type": "restApi",
        "metadata": {
          "monitoring": "inactive",
          "lastModified": "2026-05-19 14:09:50",
          "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
          "state": "started"
        },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows","type":"subFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "getHello",                          "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputCatchHandler",       "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputFailureHandler",     "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputTimeoutHandler",     "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "postHello",                         "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "resources","type":"resources","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "getHello_Compute.esql",                       "type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "hello.yaml",                                  "type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputCatchHandler_Compute.esql",    "type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputFailureHandler_Compute.esql",  "type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "HelloWorldInputTimeoutHandler_Compute.esql",  "type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "postHello_Compute.esql",                      "type":"resource","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "libraries","type":"libraries","metadata": {} },
          { "name": "messageflows","type":"messageFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [{ "name": "gen.HelloWorld","type":"messageFlow","metadata": {} }]
          },
          { "name": "document",  "type":"document",  "metadata": {} },
          { "name": "interface", "type":"interface", "metadata": { "lastModified":"2026-05-19 14:09:50" },
            "children": [
              { "name": "getHello", "type":"operation","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "postHello","type":"operation","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "statistics","type":"statistics","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "snapshot","type":"snapshot","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "archive", "type":"archive", "metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "services": {
    "name": "services",
    "type": "services",
    "metadata": {}
  },
  "libraries": {
    "name": "shared-libraries",
    "type": "sharedLibraries",
    "metadata": {},
    "children": [
      {
        "name": "ReprocessWithTimeout",
        "type": "sharedLibrary",
        "metadata": { "lastModified":"2026-05-19 14:10:00" },
        "children": [
          { "name": "subflows","type":"subFlows","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "com.id.reprocess.timeout.ReprocessWithTimeoutSeperateTransaction","type":"subFlow","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "com.id.reprocess.timeout.ReprocessWithTimeoutSingleTransaction",  "type":"subFlow","metadata": {} }
            ]
          },
          { "name": "resources","type":"resources","metadata": {},
            "children": [
              { "name": "com\\id\\reprocess\\timeout\\TimeoutSeperateTransaction_CheckRetry.esql","type":"resource","metadata": {} },
              { "name": "com\\id\\reprocess\\timeout\\WaitForTimeout_Retry.esql",                "type":"resource","metadata": {} }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

That’s a lot of structure for one tool, but it’s all there: four applications (CallableApp, TestApp, TestDates, TestPGP), one REST API (HelloWorld with its two operations getHello / postHello), no services, and one shared library (ReprocessWithTimeout). Each artefact gets a state, last-modified timestamp, and startup time, plus its internal children (subflows, resources, message flows, statistics).

3.3 List any deployment or runtime resources this application needs

This MCP tool gives you information about your dependencies. It shows the externals of an application, what it requires in order to run. Takes an application name as a parameter , e.g. TestApp or TestPGP for our runtime.

Inspector

Select the List any deployment or runtime resources this application needs tool in the middle panel, specify an application you want to look at → Run Tool

img_6.png

Curl

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":4,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_application_needs","arguments":{"applicationName":"TestApp"}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

The argument key is applicationName (not application, caught me out the first time).

Response (unwrapped from result.content[0].text):

{
  "credentials": ["RestAuth"],
  "policies": []
}

So TestApp needs the RestAuth credential to run and doesn’t reference any policy. Useful as a pre-deploy sanity check.

3.4 List the policies of an integration runtime

This MCP tool gives you information about the available policies. Either for a specific Policy Project or for the full Integration Server. With optional policy details.

Inspector

Select the List the policies of an integration runtime tool in the middle panel, run it as is, or select a specific project you want to look at → Run Tool

For the full runtime

img_7.png

For a specific Policy Project

img_8.png

With full details

img_9.png

Curl

Summary across all policy projects (no arguments):

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":5,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_policies","arguments":{}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

Response:

[
  {
    "name": "PGP_Policies",
    "contents": [
      { "name": "PGP-RCV-CFG-SERVICE-CONTAINER", "type": "UserDefined" },
      { "name": "PGP-RCV-CFG-SERVICE",           "type": "UserDefined" },
      { "name": "PGP-SDR-CFG-SERVICE-CONTAINER", "type": "UserDefined" },
      { "name": "PGP-SDR-CFG-SERVICE",           "type": "UserDefined" }
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "PolicyProject",
    "contents": [
      { "name": "DefaultMQ",              "type": "MQEndpoint" },
      { "name": "DefaultMQInsecure",      "type": "MQEndpoint" },
      { "name": "DefaultMQInsecureLocal", "type": "MQEndpoint" },
      { "name": "sftp_policy",            "type": "FtpServer"  },
      { "name": "sftp_policy2",           "type": "FtpServer"  }
    ]
  }
]

Single project, with full details (projectName + details=true):

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":6,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_policies","arguments":{"projectName":"PolicyProject","details":true}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

The schema names the selector projectName (and details as a separate boolean), not the {wibble}:wobble selector string the tool description hints at. The description is misleading here.

Response:

Full response (click to expand) 
[
  {
    "name": "PolicyProject",
    "contents": [
      {
        "name": "DefaultMQ",
        "type": "MQEndpoint",
        "properties": {
          "CCDTUrl": "",
          "MQApplName": "",
          "SSLCertificateLabel": "",
          "SSLCipherSpec": "",
          "SSLPeerName": "",
          "agentId": "",
          "channelName": "DEV.APP.SVRCONN",
          "connection": "CLIENT",
          "destinationQueueManagerName": "QM1",
          "listenerPortNumber": 1414,
          "name": "DefaultMQ",
          "queueManagerHostname": "localhost",
          "reconnectOption": "default",
          "securityIdentity": "qm1",
          "type": "Policy",
          "useSSL": false
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "DefaultMQInsecure",
        "type": "MQEndpoint",
        "properties": {
          "CCDTUrl": "",
          "MQApplName": "",
          "SSLCertificateLabel": "",
          "SSLCipherSpec": "",
          "SSLPeerName": "",
          "agentId": "",
          "channelName": "INSECURE.APP.SVRCONN",
          "connection": "CLIENT",
          "destinationQueueManagerName": "qmgrpoc",
          "listenerPortNumber": 1414,
          "name": "DefaultMQInsecure",
          "queueManagerHostname": "qmgr-poc-ibm-mq",
          "reconnectOption": "default",
          "securityIdentity": "",
          "type": "Policy",
          "useSSL": false
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "DefaultMQInsecureLocal",
        "type": "MQEndpoint",
        "properties": {
          "CCDTUrl": "",
          "MQApplName": "",
          "SSLCertificateLabel": "",
          "SSLCipherSpec": "",
          "SSLPeerName": "",
          "agentId": "",
          "channelName": "INSECURE.APP.SVRCONN",
          "connection": "CLIENT",
          "destinationQueueManagerName": "QM1",
          "listenerPortNumber": 1414,
          "name": "DefaultMQInsecureLocal",
          "queueManagerHostname": "localhost",
          "reconnectOption": "default",
          "securityIdentity": "",
          "type": "Policy",
          "useSSL": false
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "sftp_policy",
        "type": "FtpServer",
        "properties": {
          "allowedCiphers": "",
          "fileFtpAccountInfo": "",
          "fileFtpCompression": 0,
          "fileFtpConnectionType": "PASSIVE",
          "fileFtpDirectory": "",
          "fileFtpScanDelay": null,
          "fileFtpServer": "itcsubmit.wustl.edu:22",
          "fileFtpTransferMode": "",
          "fileFtpUser": "testId",
          "knownHostsFile": "",
          "mac": "",
          "name": "sftp_policy",
          "preserveRemoteFileDate": false,
          "proxyPolicyName": "",
          "remoteTransferType": "",
          "sslProtocol": "TLSv1.2",
          "strictHostKeyChecking": false,
          "timeoutInterval": 0,
          "type": "Policy"
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "sftp_policy2",
        "type": "FtpServer",
        "properties": {
          "allowedCiphers": "",
          "fileFtpAccountInfo": "",
          "fileFtpCompression": 0,
          "fileFtpConnectionType": "PASSIVE",
          "fileFtpDirectory": "",
          "fileFtpScanDelay": null,
          "fileFtpServer": "itcsubmit.wustl.edu:22",
          "fileFtpTransferMode": "",
          "fileFtpUser": "testId2",
          "knownHostsFile": "",
          "mac": "",
          "name": "sftp_policy2",
          "preserveRemoteFileDate": false,
          "proxyPolicyName": "",
          "remoteTransferType": "",
          "sslProtocol": "TLSv1.2",
          "strictHostKeyChecking": false,
          "timeoutInterval": 0,
          "type": "Policy"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
]

Now you can see exactly which queue manager DefaultMQ is pointing at, what channel DefaultMQInsecure uses, which SFTP server the sftp_policy2 is configured for, etc. , without having to crack open the policy XML on disk.

3.5 List the credentials of an integration runtime

This MCP tool gives you an overview of all registered credentials for your runtime. Like the other tools it’s read-only, and it doesn’t give you any actual usernames or passwords (which makes sense).

Inspector

Select the List the credentials of an integration runtime tool in the middle panel → Run Tool

img_10.png

Curl

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":7,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"list_credentials","arguments":{}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

Response (unwrapped from result.content[0].text):

{
  "rest-credentials": ["RestAuth"],
  "sftp-credentials": ["testId2"]
}

Just the aliases, grouped by credential type. No usernames, no passwords. So the LLM can ask “which credentials exist?” but can’t read what’s in them, which is the right design for a read-only tool.

3.6 Return a structure with information detailing a message flow

This MCP tool gives you a text-based description of a deployed message flow: its nodes, the links between them, runtime state, and any per-node metadata (security identities, that kind of thing). Requires both applicationName and flowName.

Inspector

Select the Return a structure with information detailing a message flow tool in the middle panel, fill in the application and the flow → Run Tool.

img_11.png

Curl

'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":8,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"describe_message_flow","arguments":{"applicationName":"TestApp","flowName":"TestFlow"}}}' | curl.exe -sk -X POST $base `
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' `
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' `
  -H "Mcp-Session-Id: $session" `
  --data-binary '@-'

Response (unwrapped from result.content[0].text):

{
  "name": "TestFlow",
  "type": "messageFlow",
  "metadata": {
    "additionalInstances": 0,
    "monitoring": "inactive",
    "lastModified": "2026-05-19 14:17:04",
    "isRunning": true,
    "startupTime": "2026-05-19T14:22:09Z",
    "state": "started"
  },
  "children": [
    {
      "name": "nodes",
      "type": "nodes",
      "metadata": {},
      "children": [
        {
          "name": "HTTP Input",
          "type": "node",
          "metadata": {},
          "links": [
            { "sourceNode": "HTTP Input", "targetNode": "Compute", "sourceTerminal": "out", "targetTerminal": "in" }
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "Compute",
          "type": "node",
          "metadata": {},
          "links": [
            { "sourceNode": "HTTP Input", "targetNode": "Compute",      "sourceTerminal": "out",  "targetTerminal": "in" },
            { "sourceNode": "Compute",    "targetNode": "File Read",    "sourceTerminal": "out",  "targetTerminal": "in" },
            { "sourceNode": "Compute",    "targetNode": "postNew-path", "sourceTerminal": "out4", "targetTerminal": "in" }
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "File Read",
          "type": "node",
          "metadata": {},
          "links": [
            { "sourceNode": "Compute", "targetNode": "File Read", "sourceTerminal": "out", "targetTerminal": "in" }
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "postNew-path",
          "type": "node",
          "metadata": { "securityIdentity": "RestAuth" },
          "links": [
            { "sourceNode": "Compute", "targetNode": "postNew-path", "sourceTerminal": "out4", "targetTerminal": "in" }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "statistics",
      "type": "statistics",
      "metadata": {},
      "children": [
        { "name": "snapshot", "type": "snapshot", "metadata": {} },
        { "name": "archive",  "type": "archive",  "metadata": {} }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This might be the most interesting tool of the bunch. You get the whole flow graph: an HTTP Input feeds a Compute node, which fans out to a File Read and a postNew-path HTTP-request node (with its securityIdentity set to RestAuth, explaining why list_application_needs reported a credential dependency back in 3.3). Each link captures the source/target node and terminal so a tool downstream could, theoretically, rebuild the topology graphically.

Handing it over to Bob

Inspector and curl are great for poking around, but the whole point of standing up an MCP server is to point an actual agent at it. Time to hand the keys to one, and who better than Bob? Two actions to take here:

  1. Handling the self-signed certificate
  2. Configuring the MCP

Make the cert workaround permanent

Inspector and curl both got NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 from the shell I launched them in. Bob is a long-running Windows app that you start once and forget about, so the shell trick doesn’t carry over. Two options here: either I add the signing certificate as a trusted root, or I set the user environment variables to allow for the self-signed certificate. I went with the latter option. In case you also want to go down this route, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Win + R → sysdm.cpl → Advanced → Environment Variables…
  2. Under User variables, click New, set the name to NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED and the value to 0.
  3. Relaunch Bob, not the single project, but everything (just in case you have multiple projects open).

Same dev-only caveat as before. If this laptop is ever going to do production work, swap this for a properly trusted CA in Windows’ Trusted Root store.

Register the MCP server in Bob

Bob has its own MCP settings menu under Settings → MCP which writes to C:\Users\<you>\.bob\settings\mcp_settings.json. Open the command palette and type in MCP:

img_12.png

I went for the Global MCPs approach:

img_13.png

And I entered the following, which ends up in the previously-mentioned mcp_settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ace-admin": {
      "url": "https://localhost:7650/mcp/sse",
      "type": "sse"
    }
  }
}

Two things of note here:

  1. Have a good look at the url. We use /mcp for curl and Inspector, but Bob requires the /mcp/sse endpoint. If you just specify the MCP endpoint, you will get a bunch of SSE 404 errors. Bob expects the SSE handshake regardless of how you configured it.
  2. The type field is set to sse to match.

img_14.png

With these settings in place, open the ace-admin server and enable it. You should see the available tools show up here.

img_15.png

From here you ask Bob things like “what applications are deployed?” or “what credentials does TestApp depend on?” and it picks the right MCP tool, calls it, and turns the JSON into a sentence. I just asked it a simple question:

“Hey Bob, can you get me some info on what is running in my ace runtime? use the ace-admin mcp”

And this was the reply:

img_16.png

You can also tell Bob to allow these actions by default, if you trust them.

img_17.png

I’ve played around with it and sometimes the MCP started failing when I changed these settings. I’m not entirely sure if it was the Bob config or the ACE MCP server that was being difficult, but I ended up changing the mcp_settings.json by hand and restarting the MCP in Bob to get everything running again.

Problems I encountered

I got this to work in the end, but I did hit a couple of bumps on the way. Sharing them so you can either find a quick solution to the problem or avoid it altogether.

Self-signed certificate vs Node.js

The standalone integration server uses its own self-signed cert (the same one it uses for RestAdminListener). Inspector’s underlying Node fetch refuses it by default and tells you to “try running Node.js with --use-system-ca”, which only helps if the cert is in the OS trust store. You can always import the CA, if you want, but the quickest workaround is to set NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 in the shell before launching Inspector. Strictly dev-only, obviously. The same approach works for any Node-based MCP client.

PowerShell 5.1 doesn’t have -SkipCertificateCheck

If you want to use PowerShell to call the MCP, you also need a way of ignoring the self-signed certificate validation. PowerShell 7 added the -SkipCertificateCheck flag to the Invoke-WebRequest function, but if you are still rocking the Windows-bundled PowerShell 5.1, you need to either

  1. Upgrade your PowerShell installation.
  2. Use curl.exe from PowerShell, it has -k and side-steps the issue (use curl.exe and not just curl, without the .exe it defaults to Invoke-WebRequest).
  3. Override the global validation callback once per shell:
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true}
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

I just switched to curl.exe, seemed easiest.

PowerShell quote-passing to native .exes

In PowerShell, \" inside single-quoted strings is literal, it’s not an escape sequence the shell strips. So the friendly-looking:

curl.exe -d '{\"foo\":\"bar\"}' https://example.com

sends a body with literal backslashes and breaks JSON parsing on the server. The server returns a generic error that gives you no clue this is what happened. Three workarounds:

  1. --% stop-parsing operator: curl.exe --% -d "{\"foo\":\"bar\"}" https://example.com switches to cmd-style quoting from there on.
  2. Body in a file and curl.exe -d '@body.json'.
  3. Body via stdin: $body | curl.exe --data-binary '@-' ….

I keep doing this in PowerShell, so I thought I’d write this reminder, at least partly, for myself.

500 Internal Server Error with zero detail

If you POST anything to /mcp that ACE doesn’t like (wrong shape, wrong session state, anything that throws inside its Node handler), the response body is the unhelpful:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","error":{"code":-32000,"message":"Internal Server Error"},"id":null}

The real stack trace goes through log4js to ACE’s service trace, which is disabled by default on a Standalone Integration Server. So you don’t get a log file with the actual error either. Either turn on the server trace or try again.

Only one MCP client at a time

This was an annoying one, and it’s worth its own subsection because the behavior was tricky to understand. The integration server only accepts one MCP client per server lifetime, the first one wins. Not really helpful when you are testing both a UI and a CLI at the same time.

The technical explanation: ACE’s mcpRouter.js creates one McpServer instance per router (at startup) and calls connect() on it for every new client session:

const u = new McpServer({...});               // one instance, lives forever
// per initialize request:
const i = new StreamableHTTPServerTransport({...});
await u.connect(i);                           // ← throws on the 2nd+ call

The MCP SDK’s Protocol.connect() refuses to re-attach:

// @modelcontextprotocol/sdk/dist/esm/shared/protocol.js
async connect(transport) {
    if (this._transport) {
        throw new Error('Already connected to a transport. Call close() before connecting to a new transport, or use a separate Protocol instance per connection.');
    }
    this._transport = transport;
    ...
}

The exception gets caught by an Express error middleware and becomes the generic 500 above. First client wins. Every subsequent client trying to initialize a fresh session gets 500 until the integration server is restarted.

The practical impact: pick one MCP client per ACE process. If you connect via Inspector first and then try curl, expect 500s. If you connect via curl first and then try Inspector, expect Inspector to fail.

Inspector’s “Disconnect” doesn’t really disconnect

Adjacent to the previous point. Clicking Disconnect in Inspector’s UI is misleading. The underlying transport on ACE’s side only fires onclose when:

  • A DELETE /mcp request with the original Mcp-Session-Id header is sent, or
  • The SSE stream closes from the network side

Closing the Inspector browser tab, killing its npx process, or hitting the Disconnect button doesn’t reliably do either. Even with no TCP connection on port 7650, ACE’s McpServer._transport is still set, and new initialize requests keep 500’ing. The fool-proof way to clear ACE-side state is to restart the integration server.

Auth: do this before anyone else can reach the port

MCP.Admin on 13.0.7.0 has only enabled and port. No mcpCredentialName, no sslMode knob. It inherits TLS from the RestAdminListener configuration and is unauthenticated to anyone who can reach the port.

That’s fine for a laptop demo. For anything else:

  1. Bind RestAdminListener to a non-public address (127.0.0.1 if you’re tunnelling, an internal subnet if you’re not).
  2. Put a reverse proxy in front that does Basic Auth, mTLS, or OAuth, and only forward to 7650 after successful auth. The MCP Inspector and Claude Desktop both happily speak Basic Auth over the Streamable HTTP transport.
  3. If you have IBM’s MCP Gateway / ContextForge available, route through that , it adds OAuth, rate limiting, and scope enforcement in front of any MCP server.
  4. Watch the IBM 13.0.8 release notes for MCP.Admin.mcpCredentialName (or similar) , given MCP.Runtime already has that knob, it would be surprising not to land on Admin at some point.

What this didn’t cover

  • MCP.Runtime , exposing your deployed REST APIs as MCP tools.
  • Containerised deployments. Setting up MCP inside an IntegrationRuntime CR on Kubernetes is a different exercise , wiring server.conf.yaml overrides through a serverconf Configuration, exposing port 7650 / 7750 through an ingress, and dealing with the operator’s dashboard↔runtime certificate wiring.

Where this leaves us

We now have an Admin MCP right there in ACE. Sure, it’s not CRUD, it’s not exposing logging or auditing information. But, it’s a start, and it got my hopes up for things to come.

References

Written by Matthias Blomme and inspired by Kim Meynendonckx

#IBMChampion

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