Helm MCP

An open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI assistants full access to Helm — the Kubernetes package manager. Built with the native Helm Go SDK, supporting both Helm 3.x and 4.x in a single binary.

Use natural language to manage your Kubernetes deployments.

Connect helm-mcp to Claude, Cursor, VS Code, or any MCP-compatible client to install charts, manage releases, search repositories, and more — all through conversation.

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Table of Contents

• Why helm-mcp?
• Installation
• Quick Start
• MCP Client Configuration
• MCP Protocol Support
• Available Tools
• Tool Annotations
• Structured Output
• Helm CLI Coverage
• Kubernetes Authentication
• Helm Version Selection
• Python Package
• Resilience Configuration (Python)
• Response Payload Management
• Known Limitations
• Security
• Authentication (OIDC/OAuth2)
• On-Behalf-Of (OBO) Token Exchange
• Development
• Architecture
• Contributing
• Community
• License

Why helm-mcp?

• 46 MCP tools covering every Helm CLI command (minus shell completion and help)
• Dual Helm SDK support — Helm v3 and v4 via native Go SDK (not CLI wrappers)
• Two transport modes — stdio (default) and Streamable HTTP, stateless by default
• Cloud provider ready — EKS, GKE, AKS kubeconfig formats work out of the box
• Security first — Linux process hardening, credential memory zeroing, input validation, path traversal prevention
• Python wrapper — FastMCP-based proxy that auto-discovers all tools
• Forward proxy support — respects HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_PROXY

Installation

Pre-built Binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from GitHub Releases:

# macOS (Apple Silicon)

curl -LO https://github.com/SCGIS-Wales/helm-mcp/releases/latest/download/helm-mcp-darwin-arm64 chmod +x helm-mcp-darwin-arm64 sudo mv helm-mcp-darwin-arm64 /usr/local/bin/helm-mcp

macOS (Intel)

curl -LO https://github.com/SCGIS-Wales/helm-mcp/releases/latest/download/helm-mcp-darwin-amd64 chmod +x helm-mcp-darwin-amd64 sudo mv helm-mcp-darwin-amd64 /usr/local/bin/helm-mcp

Linux (amd64)

curl -LO https://github.com/SCGIS-Wales/helm-mcp/releases/latest/download/helm-mcp-linux-amd64 chmod +x helm-mcp-linux-amd64 sudo mv helm-mcp-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/helm-mcp

Linux (arm64)

curl -LO https://github.com/SCGIS-Wales/helm-mcp/releases/latest/download/helm-mcp-linux-arm64 chmod +x helm-mcp-linux-arm64 sudo mv helm-mcp-linux-arm64 /usr/local/bin/helm-mcp

Build from Source

Requires Go 1.27.2+.

git clone https://github.com/SCGIS-Wales/helm-mcp.git

cd helm-mcp make build

Docker

docker build -t helm-mcp .

docker run -v ~/.kube:/home/helmuser/.kube:ro helm-mcp --mode stdio

Python Package

pip install helm-mcp

See Python Package below for full details.

Quick Start

stdio mode (for Claude Code, Cursor, etc.)

helm-mcp --mode stdio

HTTP mode (Streamable HTTP)

helm-mcp --mode http

HTTP mode listens on 127.0.0.1:8080 by default. To accept remote clients, configure authentication (see Authentication) and bind explicitly, for example --addr 0.0.0.0:8080.

HTTP mode is stateless by default (MCP 2026-07-28): there is no initialize handshake and no Mcp-Session-Id header, so the server can sit behind a plain round-robin load balancer with no sticky sessions and no shared session store. Clients speaking an older protocol revision still work — the SDK negotiates down automatically.

If a client needs the legacy per-session behaviour:

helm-mcp --mode http --stateless=false

Removed in v0.2.0: `--mode sse`. The HTTP+SSE transport has been

deprecated by the MCP specification since 2025-03-26 and is formally

Deprecated under the 2026-07-28 feature lifecycle policy. Use

--mode http, which serves Streamable HTTP on the same address.

MCP Client Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{

"mcpServers": { "helm": { "command": "helm-mcp", "args": ["--mode", "stdio"] } } }

Claude Code

claude mcp add helm -- helm-mcp --mode stdio

Cursor / Windsurf / VS Code

Add to your MCP server configuration:

{

"helm-mcp": { "command": "helm-mcp", "args": ["--mode", "stdio"] } }

Remote / HTTP Clients

Start the server in HTTP mode, then connect any MCP-compatible client to the endpoint:

helm-mcp --mode http

MCP endpoint: http://localhost:8080/mcp

MCP Protocol Support

helm-mcp implements MCP `2026-07-28` and negotiates down to earlier revisions (2025-11-25, 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26, 2024-11-05) for older clients, so upgrading the server does not require upgrading your client.

Available Tools (46)

Release Management (14)

Chart Management (14)

Repository Management (5)

Registry / OCI (2)

Search (2)

Plugin Management (6)

Environment (2)

Dependency Update (1)

Tool Annotations

Every tool carries MCP annotations so a client — or an agent deciding what to call — can tell a read at a glance from a change to your cluster.

| readOnlyHint: true | Only reads state; safe to call freely | helm_list, helm_status, helm_history, all helm_get_*, all helm_show_*, helm_repo_list, helm_plugin_list, helm_dependency_list, helm_env,