Digilent WaveForms MCP Server

dwf-mcp-server

MCP Server for Digilent WaveForms instruments — oscilloscope, arbitrary waveform generator (AWG), and logic analyzer. Built on dwfpy, a Python binding for the Digilent WaveForms SDK (libdwf).

Supported Devices

• Analog Discovery 2 (AD2)
• Analog Discovery 3 (AD3)
• Digital Discovery (DD)
• Any device supported by the Digilent WaveForms SDK

Prerequisites

• Docker installed on the host machine.
• No host-side WaveForms SDK installation is required. The proprietary libdwf.so is added via a derived Dockerfile layer (see Installation).
• USB device permissions — Digilent USB devices default to root:root 0664. If the container cannot find any devices, add a udev rule on the host:

  # /etc/udev/rules.d/99-digilent.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1443", MODE="0666"

  Then reload: `sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger`

Installation

The public Docker image does not bundle any Digilent proprietary software (Adept 2 Runtime, WaveForms SDK / libdwf.so). You must create a derived image that adds them.

1. Create a derived Dockerfile

Create a file named Dockerfile.dwf:

FROM ghcr.io/kenosinc/dwf-mcp-server:latest

ARG ADEPT_VERSION=2.27.9 ARG WAVEFORMS_VERSION=3.24.4 RUN ARCH="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" \ && apt-get update \ && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends curl \ && curl -fsSL "https://files.digilent.com/Software/Adept2%20Runtime/${ADEPT_VERSION}/digilent.adept.runtime_${ADEPT_VERSION}-${ARCH}.deb" \ -o /tmp/adept-runtime.deb \ && curl -fsSL "https://files.digilent.com/Software/Waveforms/${WAVEFORMS_VERSION}/digilent.waveforms_${WAVEFORMS_VERSION}_${ARCH}.deb" \ -o /tmp/waveforms.deb \ && (apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends /tmp/adept-runtime.deb /tmp/waveforms.deb || true) \ && for cmd in xdg-desktop-menu xdg-icon-resource xdg-mime; do \ printf '#!/bin/sh\nexit 0\n' > "/usr/bin/$cmd" && chmod +x "/usr/bin/$cmd"; \ done \ && dpkg --configure -a \ && apt-get purge -y curl \ && apt-get autoremove -y \ && rm -f /tmp/adept-runtime.deb /tmp/waveforms.deb \ && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

2. Build the image

docker build -f Dockerfile.dwf -t dwf-mcp-server .

3. Configure your MCP client

Claude Code

claude mcp add dwf -- docker run -i --rm --privileged dwf-mcp-server

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{

"mcpServers": { "dwf": { "command": "docker", "args": [ "run", "-i", "--rm", "--privileged", "dwf-mcp-server" ] } } }

Pass --privileged so the container can access USB devices.

Project-level config (Claude Code)

If you have cloned this repository, copy the bundled example to a project-local .mcp.json (which is gitignored) so Claude Code picks it up automatically when opened against this directory:

cp .mcp.example.json .mcp.json

Edit the resulting .mcp.json to match your local image tag or to add other servers; the original .mcp.example.json stays clean and shareable.

Available MCP Tools

Development

See CLAUDE.md for development setup, coding conventions, and release procedures.

License

MIT