Skip to main content

Overview

The Corelayer MCP server lets AI agents access Corelayer through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Agents can discover Corelayer groups, list issues, read issue details, inspect summaries, search organization memory, and use that context in their normal workflows. Use Corelayer MCP when you want an AI tool to answer questions like:
  • “What are the highest-priority open production issues right now?”
  • “Search our Corelayer memory for previous decisions about this incident.”
  • “Find issues in the workspace, then create tickets or daily summaries in my planning tool.”
Corelayer supports two MCP connection modes: For most hosted connectors, use the remote MCP endpoint:

Remote MCP

Remote MCP is the easiest way to connect a hosted AI agent or connector to Corelayer. The agent talks to Corelayer over HTTPS and authenticates with a Corelayer API key. Remote MCP requires an MCP host that supports HTTP MCP servers and bearer-token authentication. If your host only supports local stdio MCP servers, use the local package below. Use this connection shape in MCP clients that support remote HTTP servers:
Some MCP hosts use serverUrl instead of url, or collect the bearer token in a separate authentication field. Use your host’s MCP configuration format, but keep the same endpoint and authorization header. Remote MCP currently exposes read-only tools. It does not expose close, reopen, or bulk close operations.

Authentication

Create a dedicated API key for your MCP connector:
Use the returned key as the bearer token:
Use a dedicated key per connector or automation. This makes it easier to audit, rotate, and revoke access without disrupting other workflows.

How Connectors Find a Group

Most Corelayer tools are scoped to a group. A connector does not need to know the groupId before setup. The normal connector flow is:
  1. Call corelayer.list_groups.
  2. Let the agent pick the matching group by name, or ask the user to choose.
  3. Pass the selected group’s id as groupId to group-scoped tools.
For example, an agent instruction can say:
This is the recommended pattern for hosted connectors because it avoids asking users to copy internal IDs during setup.

Available Remote Tools

Example Connector Workflows

Daily triage:
Ticket creation:
Historical context:
Pre-PR review:

Local MCP

Use local MCP when your AI coding agent runs MCP servers as local stdio processes. The local server is distributed as an npm package:
Your MCP host launches this command and communicates with it over standard input and standard output. Add Corelayer to your local MCP-compatible coding agent configuration:
Restart your agent or editor after changing the MCP config.

Local Authentication

The local MCP server resolves credentials in this order:
  1. CORELAYER_API_KEY
  2. the local CLI token from ~/.corelayer/config.json
Prefer CORELAYER_API_KEY because it is explicit, revocable, and easier to audit.

Optional Local Default Group

If your local agent usually works in one Corelayer group, set CORELAYER_DEFAULT_GROUP so group-scoped tools can omit groupId:
For remote MCP, use the corelayer.list_groups discovery flow instead of a process-level default group.

Additional Local Tools

The local MCP package also exposes write tools for authenticated local agents: corelayer.bulk_close_issues requires explicit issue IDs, caps requests at 500 IDs, and never uses a select-all mutation.

Environment Variables

Verify Local Package

Check that npm can see the package:
You can also start the local server manually:
The command starts a stdio MCP server and waits for MCP JSON-RPC messages. In a terminal it may look idle; that is expected. Your MCP host is responsible for sending requests.

Troubleshooting