Set up

The Alfabet MCP Server is an integral part of the RESTful services delivered via the Alfabet API Server. It can be used with any AI assistant that implements MCP 1.0 with Streamable HTTP transport and OAuth 2.1 Dynamic Client Registration. It has been tested to connect successfully with Claude Desktop, Claude.ai (via MCP connector), and Langdock® enterprise client .

To connect an AI service with an MCP client to the Alfabet MCP server, the following setup is required:

Install and set up the Alfabet API server.

The Alfabet API server must be running with a valid license. Installation and set-up on the Web server are described as part of the overall installation of the Alfabet components.

Configure the Alfabet API server to provide the MCP server functionality.

Open the alfasettings.json file in the config sub-folder of the physical directory of the Alfabet API server and set the following fields:

• Enable MCP server requests. In the JSON object of the AlfabetConfig field, add the following field:
  • 'EnableMCP': true
  • 'AlfabetConfig': {
    • 'msfile': 'C:\\Alfabet\\Programs\\alfabetms.xml',
    • 'alias': 'Production',
    • 'UseSwaggerUi': false,
    • 'UseIIS': true,
    • 'EnableMCP': true }
• Enable dynamic OAuth authentication between MCP Server and AI Service client. Make sure that there is a JsonWebTokenKeys field with the required settings. If this field is not available, copy it to your alfasettings.json file from one of the example alfasettings.json files in the sub-folders of the Examples sub-folder of the physical directory of the Alfabet API server.
• Configure the connection to the Oauth identity provider of your AI Service.

  With Alfabet 11.13.1, the Alfabet MCP server has been enhanced to use OAuth for user identification. If you need to use dynamic client registration for the IDP setup to access your AI client, you must upgrade to Alfabet 11.13.1 and do the following configuration.

  Add an Authentication field to the alfasettings.json file containing a JSON object with the following fields:

  • 'Authentication': {
    • 'Schemes': {
      • 'GenericIdp': {
        • 'Authority': ' ',
        • 'ValidIssuer': ' ',
        • 'WellKnownConfigPath':'.well-known/openid-configuration',
        • 'Audience': 'api://default',
        • 'RequireHttpsMetadata': true
    • }
  • }

  Enter the values for your identity provider in the following fields of the code:

  • Authority: Enter the root URL of the identity provider for connections to your AI service.
  • ValidIssuer: Enter the valid issuer of the identity provider for connections to your AI service.

Define access permissions for the Alfabet RESTful services.

A user can only access data if the following permissions are configured:

• The server alias of the API server is configured to allow access to the Alfabet RESTful service endpoints involved. Required permissions are:
  • Has Meta-Model Access
  • Has GetObjectsByRefs Access
  • Has GetObjectsByReport Access
  • Has GetObjectsByFilter Access
• The user has access to the Alfabet RESTful services and to all required endpoints listed above.
• The data is configured to be accessible via RESTful services in the default class settings of the object classes. User profiles are not evaluated for MCP Server access. The access permissions for all users are read from the default class settings defined for each object class.

For a complete documentation of authorization for the Alfabet RESTful services, see the Alfabet 10.15 documentation of the Alfabet RESTful services . Authentication is identical for Alfabet 11 releases.

Make sure the AI host (user's machine or cloud service) has HTTPS access to the Alfabet API Server..

For cloud-hosted AI services, the Alfabet API Server must be reachable from the cloud egress IPs. This typically requires a DMZ exposure or API gateway.

Configure the AI service's MCP client to connect to the Alfabet MCP Server.

OAuth is used for authentication. The way the connection is set-up depends on the AI service used. Information is available in the documentation of the AI service provider.

The URL of the MCP server is https://<URL of the Alfabet API Server>/mcp

If your AI tool asks for authorization and token URLs, use https://<URL of the Alfabet API Server>/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server.