MCP Adapter
Thousands of useful tools already exist as Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers — but on their own they come with no governance, no audit trail, and no federation. The MCP adapter brings them inside: a venue calls external MCP servers as grid operations, discovering their tools and invoking them with the same capability checks and job records as everything else.
Looking for the other direction — exposing your venue's operations to an AI assistant as MCP tools? A venue is automatically an MCP server. See Venues as MCP Servers.
Operations
| Operation | Catalog path | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
mcp:tools:list | v/ops/mcp/tools-list | List the tools a remote MCP server offers |
mcp:tools:call | v/ops/mcp/tools-call | Invoke a tool on a remote MCP server |
mcp:tool:add | v/ops/mcp/add-tool | Curate a single remote tool as a catalog operation at a path you choose |
mcp:server:add | v/ops/mcp/add-server | Mirror all of a server's tools into the catalog |
mcp:server:remove | v/ops/mcp/remove-server | Remove a mirrored server's tools and registry entry |
mcp:server:refresh | v/ops/mcp/refresh | Re-sync bridged tools against the live server (mirror or curated mode) |
A server is addressed by URL or by DID (resolved from the DID document's service entries). See Calling MCP Tools for worked examples, authentication options, and orchestration patterns.
Bridging: remote tools as catalog operations
Beyond one-off calls, the adapter can bridge remote MCP tools into the operation catalog, where they behave exactly like native operations — capability grants, gates, job records, schema validation, and agent tool palettes all apply. Curate individual tools from different servers into groups at catalog paths of your choosing, or mirror a whole server. See Calling MCP Tools § Bridging for the full guide.
Why go through the Grid?
Calling an MCP server through a venue, rather than wiring it into your client directly, gives you:
- Plug-and-play orchestration — compose MCP tools with other grid operations, agents, and orchestrations.
- A system of record — every call is a Job with an auditable record on your venue.
- Controlled credentials — API keys live in the venue's secret store, not in the client.
Related
- Calling MCP Tools — detailed reference for
mcp:tools:list/mcp:tools:call - Venues as MCP Servers — the inbound side (your venue as an MCP server)
- MCP Integration — the full MCP section
- Orchestrator — composing MCP tools into workflows