Configuration

Note

The configuration file used for starting MCP servers is different from the configuration file used by the simple agent application.

Server configurations are stored in the configs/ directory. The main development configuration housing all available MCP servers is configs/development.json.

Configuration files specify server hostnames, ports, transport methods, and environment variables.

Example server startup config (configs/development.json):

{
  "servers": {
    "flux": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 8101,
      "transport": "streamable-http",
      "env_vars": {
        "FLUX_HANDLE": "default",
        "FLUX_USE_PERSISTENT_EXECUTOR": "true",
        "SPINDLE_FLUXOPT": "disable",
        "LD_LIBRARY_PATH": "/opt/cray/pe/cce/20.0.0/cce/x86_64/lib:/opt/cray/pe/lib64:/opt/cray/lib64:/opt/cray/pe/papi/7.2.0.2/lib64"
      }
    },
    "slurm": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 8102,
      "transport": "streamable-http"
    },
    "professor": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 8105,
      "transport": "streamable-http",
      "env_vars": {
        "API_KEY": "${API_KEY}",
        "MODEL": "${MODEL:-gpt-5}",
        "PROF_VIS_PATH": "/usr/workspace/prof/bin/prof-vis",
        "API_BASE_URL": "${API_BASE_URL:-https://livai-api.llnl.gov}"
      }
    },
    "job_monitor": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 8106,
      "transport": "streamable-http",
      "_comment": {
        "MONITOR_LOG_TAIL_BYTES": "number of bytes of each log file the monitoring tool should return",
        "MONITOR_DEFAULT_STATUS_DEPTH": "how many status entries the monitor should inspect before summarizing"
      },
      "env_vars": {
        "MONITOR_LOG_TAIL_BYTES": "50000",
        "MONITOR_DEFAULT_STATUS_DEPTH": "20"
      }
    },
    "vertex_cfd": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 8107,
      "transport": "streamable-http",
      "env_vars": {
        "VERTEX_CFD_PATH": "/usr/workspace/mada/vertex-cfd/tuo/vertexcfd-installation/",
        "VERTEX_CFD_RESULTS_DIR": "/tmp/vertex_cfd_results"
      }
    }
  },
  "logging": {
    "level": "INFO",
    "format": "%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s"
  }
}

Environment Variable Expansion

Configuration files support environment variable expansion for secure handling of sensitive values:

• ${VAR_NAME} — Expands to the value of the environment variable
• ${VAR_NAME:-default} — Uses the default value if the variable is not set

Set environment variables before starting servers that require them.

Example

{
"servers": {
    "professor": {
    "env_vars": {
        "API_KEY": "${API_KEY}",
        "API_BASE_URL": "${API_BASE_URL:-https://api.openai.com/v1/responses}"
    }
    }
}
}

Set required environment variables before starting this server:

export API_KEY="sk-xxxx"

Transport Methods

MCP servers support different transport methods:

Transport	Description	Host/Port Required?
streamable-http	Network-based HTTP transport (default). Good for distributed systems and production. Supports streaming responses.	Yes
stdio	Standard IO (stdin/stdout) transport. Good for local development and direct process communication.	No

The streamable-http transport method requires both the host and port configuration settings. These settings will define where the server should be spun up.

Example

{
    "servers": {
        "flux": {
            "transport": "streamable-http",
            "host": "localhost",
            "port": 8001,
            "env_vars": {
                "FLUX_HANDLE": "default"
            }
        }
    }
}