formation-mcp¶

Go MCP server that connects AI coding assistants to the CyVerse Discovery Environment, exposing CyVerse's job-launching and data-management surface as MCP tools.


Repository	github.com/cyverse-de/formation-mcp
Language	Go ≥ 1.21
Distribution	Pre-built releases on GitHub; Docker image
License	Apache 2.0
Status	Public release
MCP transports	stdio · SSE

What it does¶

formation-mcp exposes the CyVerse Discovery Environment to AI assistants through the Formation API. With it, an agent can:

Launch scientific applications on the Discovery Environment
Manage analyses (start, stop, monitor, fetch results)
Interact with the CyVerse Data Store

…all through natural language in your AI assistant, without switching to a browser.

It is compatible with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Claude.ai (web), Cursor, VS Code Copilot, Windsurf, Continue.dev, Codex CLI, and any other MCP-compliant client.

How it works¶

AI Assistant (Claude, Cursor, etc.)
        │  MCP (stdio  OR  SSE/HTTPS)
        ▼
 formation-mcp-bin           ← this repo
        │  HTTPS REST
        ▼
 CyVerse Formation API
        │
        ▼
 CyVerse Discovery Environment
 (apps · analyses · Data Store)

Transport modes¶

Mode	Flag	Use case
stdio (default)	`--transport stdio`	Local AI clients (Claude Code, Cursor, …)
SSE	`--transport sse --port 8080`	Remote / web clients, Claude.ai, Docker, VM deployments

Prerequisites¶

Requirement	Notes
CyVerse account	Free at cyverse.org
Network access to CyVerse DE	`https://de.cyverse.org`
Go ≥ 1.21	Only if building from source
An MCP-aware AI client	See the AI environment setup section in the repo

Install¶

The upstream README covers:

Downloading a release binary
Building from source
Cross-platform builds
Configuration file format
systemd, nginx + Let's Encrypt, Docker, and Docker Compose deployments
Example prompts and troubleshooting

→ Full README