IT automation with agentic AI: Introducing the MCP server for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

IT automation with agentic AI: Introducing the MCP server for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform What is MCP server for Ansible Automation Platform? How it works and why it matters Getting started Installation options Official documentation Available toolsets Next steps 5 steps to automate your business About the author Marty Turner More like this AI insights with actionable automation accelerate the journey to autonomous networks How Banco do Brasil uses hyperautomation and platform engineering to drive efficiency Technically Speaking | Taming AI agents with observability Building practical self-healing IT | Technically Speaking Keep exploring Browse by channel Automation Artificial intelligence Open hybrid cloud Security Edge computing Infrastructure Applications Virtualization Share As we continue to expand intelligence capabilities in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, we’ve made the MCP server available as a technology preview feature in Ansible Automation Platform 2.6.4. The MCP server acts as a bridge between your MCP client of choice and Ansible Automation Platform. This integration helps you manage your entire infrastructure estate with exciting new tools like Cursor and Claude. The MCP server for Ansible Automation Platform is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server implementation that enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to interact with and manage Ansible Automation Platform through natural language interactions. This reduces the complexity of automation operations and enhances how teams work with infrastructure automation, all while maintaining enterprise-grade security and governance. In short, it provides a conversational interface to your automation estate and allows you to trigger and query your existing Ansible automation through simple dialogue without bypassing established controls. With the addition of the MCP server, your AI tools and LLMs of choice can now talk directly to Ansible Automation Platform, helping users navigate, query, and understand automation environments, as well as orchestrate automation workflows through natural language. The MCP server is deployed within Ansible Automation Platform. It is installed as part of the standard Ansible Automation Platform installation process and provides a comprehensive toolset for capabilities, such as job management, inventory management, and security compliance. Once deployed, administrators have the flexibility to configure the MCP server in 1 of 2 modes: read-only mode, which is ideal for safe querying and monitoring, or read-write mode, which allows AI agents to execute jobs and implement changes. It is important to enable AI accessibility without compromising security. This is done by providing secure, role-based access to jobs, content, monitoring, and administrative functions.