Rancher

Log into the Rancher UI, navigate to your profile in the top-right corner, select Account & API Keys, and create a new API key. Copy the token in the format token-xxxxx:yyyy — you will need it for all configuration methods.

Install rancher-mcp-server globally with npm to avoid downloading it each time. Alternatively, npx with -y will download and run it on demand without a global install.

npm install -g rancher-mcp-server

# Or build from Go source:
git clone https://github.com/mrostamii/rancher-mcp-server.git
cd rancher-mcp-server
go build -o rancher-mcp-server ./cmd/rancher-mcp-server

Add the rancher server to claude_desktop_config.json. Pass the server URL, token, and desired toolsets as command-line arguments. The server runs read-only by default.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rancher": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y", "rancher-mcp-server",
        "--rancher-server-url", "https://rancher.example.com",
        "--rancher-token", "token-xxxxx:yyyy",
        "--toolsets", "harvester,rancher,kubernetes,fleet"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Keep credentials out of the args array by passing them as environment variables. This is recommended for shared or version-controlled config files.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rancher": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "rancher-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "RANCHER_MCP_RANCHER_SERVER_URL": "https://rancher.example.com",
        "RANCHER_MCP_RANCHER_TOKEN": "token-xxxxx:yyyy",
        "RANCHER_MCP_TOOLSETS": "rancher,kubernetes,helm,fleet,harvester"
      }
    }
  }
}

The server defaults to read-only mode. To allow resource creation and modification, set --read-only=false. To also allow deletions, add --disable-destructive=false.

# Add these args to enable writes:
"--read-only=false"

# Also add this to allow deletions:
"--disable-destructive=false"

Restart Claude Desktop to activate the Rancher MCP server. Ask Claude to list Rancher clusters to confirm the connection is working.