ignition-mcp-server

The first AI-powered development tool for Ignition SCADA — an MCP server that lets any AI agent read, understand, and interact with your Ignition projects and gateways.

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What This Does

ignition-mcp-server connects AI agents (Claude, GPT, local LLMs) to your Ignition SCADA projects via the Model Context Protocol. It gives the AI structured access to:

• Tags — browse tag hierarchies, filter by folder path, see data types and values
• Perspective Views — read component trees, bindings, event handlers, and styles
• Scripts — read project library scripts and gateway event scripts with scope info
• UDTs — list and inspect User Defined Type definitions with member details
• Alarm Pipelines — read alarm notification configurations with stages, profiles, and transitions
• Named Queries — read SQL query definitions with parameters, database targets, and types
• Live Tag Read/Write — read and write tag values on a running Ignition gateway via WebDev
• Script Execution — run Python scripts on the gateway in gateway scope
• Tag History — query historical tag data with time range filtering

Works with both Ignition 8.1+ project exports (.zip files) and 8.3+ filesystem-based projects (direct directory access).

Why This Exists

Ignition has ~300,000+ installations worldwide and zero AI tooling — no vendor copilot, no third-party tools, no academic research. Every other major automation platform (Siemens, Rockwell, Schneider) has AI assistants. Ignition has nothing.

This server fills that gap. It's open-source, agent-agnostic, and works offline.

Part of Project Automate by Nodeblue.

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Installation

Install from source:

git clone https://github.com/nodeblue-ai/ignition-mcp-server.git
cd ignition-mcp-server
pip install .

Requires Python 3.10+.

Note: pip install ignition-mcp-server from PyPI is coming soon. For now, install from source as shown above.

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Quick Start

stdio (local — kiro-cli, Claude Desktop, Claude Code)

ignition-mcp-server

SSE (remote — server on one machine, agent on another)

ignition-mcp-server --transport sse --port 8080

With live gateway connection

ignition-mcp-server --gateway-url https://my-gateway:8088 --gateway-username admin --gateway-password changeme

This enables the read_tag, write_tag, execute_script, and get_history tools. Requires the WebDev module on the gateway with API endpoints configured (see Gateway Setup below).

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Configuration

kiro-cli

Add to your ~/.kiro/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ignition": {
      "command": "ignition-mcp-server",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

With live gateway access:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ignition": {
      "command": "ignition-mcp-server",
      "args": ["--gateway-url", "https://my-gateway:8088"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ignition": {
      "command": "ignition-mcp-server",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

SSE (remote)

Start the server on your engineering workstation:

ignition-mcp-server --transport sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

Connect from any MCP client using the SSE URL: http://<host>:8080/sse

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Available Tools

ping

Health check. Returns "pong".

get_tags(project_path, tag_path?, provider?)

Browse tags in the project. Optionally filter by folder path and tag provider.

get_tags("/path/to/project", "Conveyors/Line1")
get_tags("/path/to/project", "", "edge")

Returns tag names, types, data types, values, and documentation.

list_tag_providers(project_path)

List all tag provider names in the project (e.g. default, edge, MQTT).

list_views(project_path)

List all Perspective view paths in the project.

get_view(project_path, view_path)

Get a Perspective view's component tree with bindings and events.

get_view("/path/to/project", "Overview")

Returns component hierarchy, property bindings, and event handler counts.

list_scripts(project_path)

List all scripts with their scope (gateway, client, all).

get_script(project_path, script_path)

Get the source code of a project script.

get_script("/path/to/project", "ignition/script-python/utils")

list_udts(project_path)

List all UDT (User Defined Type) definition names.

get_udt(project_path, udt_name?)

Get UDT definition(s) with member details, parameters, and documentation.

get_udt("/path/to/project", "Motor_UDT")

list_alarms(project_path)

List all alarm pipeline names in the project.

get_alarm(project_path, pipeline_name)

Get an alarm pipeline's configuration including stages, notification profiles, and transitions.

get_alarm("/path/to/project", "MainAlarmPipeline")

Returns pipeline stages with type (delay, notification), notification profile names, contact info, consolidation periods, and transition counts.

list_named_queries(project_path)

List all named query names in the project.

get_named_query(project_path, query_name)

Get a named query's SQL, parameters, database connection, and type (Query vs Update).

get_named_query("/path/to/project", "GetActiveFaults")

Returns the SQL text, parameter definitions with data types and defaults, target database, and description.

read_tag(tag_path)

Read the current value of one or more tags from a live gateway. Comma-separate for multiple tags.

read_tag("[default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed")
read_tag("[default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed, [default]Conveyors/Line1/Running")

Requires --gateway-url at startup.

write_tag(tag_path, value)

Write a value to a tag on a live gateway. Handles boolean/numeric coercion automatically.

write_tag("[default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed", "1800")

Requires --gateway-url at startup.

execute_script(code)

Execute a Python script on the Ignition gateway in gateway scope.

execute_script("system.tag.readBlocking(['[default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed'])")

Requires --gateway-url at startup.

get_history(tag_path, start, end)

Query historical tag data from the gateway's historian.

get_history("[default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed", "2026-04-12T00:00:00Z", "2026-04-12T12:00:00Z")

Requires --gateway-url at startup.

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Supported Project Formats

Format	How to Use
Project directory (8.1+ or 8.3+)	Point project_path to the project folder containing project.json
Project export (.zip)	Point project_path to the .zip file exported from Ignition Gateway or Designer
8.3 filesystem	Point to data/projects/<ProjectName>/ on the Gateway

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Example Conversation

You: What tags are under the Conveyors folder?

Agent calls: get_tags("/projects/MyPlant", "Conveyors")

Agent: The Conveyors folder contains 2 items:
- Line1 (Folder) — 3 child tags: Running (Boolean), Speed (Float4), Faulted (Boolean)
- Line2_Motor (UDT Instance) — type: Motor_UDT

You: What does the Motor_UDT look like?

Agent calls: get_udt("/projects/MyPlant", "Motor_UDT")

Agent: Motor_UDT has 3 members:
- Running (Boolean) — Motor running status
- Faulted (Boolean) — Motor fault status
- Speed_RPM (Float4) — Motor speed in RPM
Parameters: MotorName (String)

You: Show me the Overview view

Agent calls: get_view("/projects/MyPlant", "Overview")

Agent: The Overview view has a flex container with 3 children:
1. titleLabel (ia.display.label) — bound to view.params.title
2. speedDisplay (ia.display.led-display) — bound to tag [default]Conveyors/Line1/Speed
3. startButton (ia.input.button) — has 1 onClick event handler

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Gateway Setup

The live tools (read_tag, write_tag, execute_script, get_history) require the WebDev module on your Ignition gateway with the following REST endpoints:

Endpoint	Method	Purpose
/system/webdev/api/tags/read	POST	Read tag values
/system/webdev/api/tags/write	POST	Write tag values
/system/webdev/api/script/run	POST	Execute gateway scripts
/system/webdev/api/history/query	POST	Query tag history

Example WebDev Python resource for /api/tags/read:

def doPost(request, session):
    import json
    body = json.loads(request["data"])
    paths = body.get("tagPaths", [])
    values = system.tag.readBlocking(paths)
    return {
        "json": [
            {"path": str(v.path), "value": v.value, "quality": str(v.quality)}
            for v in values
        ]
    }

See the Ignition WebDev docs for full setup instructions.

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Roadmap

v0.2 — Alarms & Named Queries ✅

• [x] list_alarms / get_alarm — parse alarm pipeline configurations
• [x] list_named_queries / get_named_query — parse SQL named queries with parameters

v0.3 — Live Gateway Interaction ✅

• [x] read_tag(tag_path) / write_tag(tag_path, value) — live tag interaction via Ignition WebDev module
• [x] execute_script(code) — run scripts on the gateway
• [x] get_history(tag_path, start, end) — query tag history

v0.4 — Cross-Platform Intelligence ✅

• [x] Cross-reference Ignition tags with Studio 5000 L5X PLC logic via bridge-mcp-server
• [x] "This alarm fires when tag X goes true — here's the PLC logic that drives X"
• [x] OPC item path extraction (opcItemPath, opcServer) in tag summaries

Future

• [ ] RAG pipeline over Ignition documentation + project corpus
• [ ] Ignition script generation (gateway timer scripts, Perspective bindings)
• [ ] Perspective view scaffolding from natural language descriptions
• [ ] Local LLM support for air-gapped deployments

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Development

git clone https://github.com/nodeblue-ai/ignition-mcp-server.git
cd ignition-mcp-server
pip install -e .
pip install pytest
pytest tests/ -v

Project Structure

src/ignition_mcp_server/
├── __init__.py
├── __main__.py          # CLI entry point (stdio/SSE, gateway config)
├── server.py            # FastMCP server with all 17 tool definitions
├── project_source.py    # Read from .zip or directory (LRU-cached)
├── gateway_client.py    # HTTP client for live Ignition WebDev API
└── parsers/
    ├── tags.py          # Tag hierarchy parser (multi-provider)
    ├── views.py         # Perspective view parser
    ├── scripts.py       # Script discovery and reader
    ├── udts.py          # UDT definition parser
    ├── alarms.py        # Alarm pipeline parser
    └── named_queries.py # Named query parser

tests/
├── test_server.py       # 59 tests — parsers, project sources, error handling
├── test_gateway.py      # 13 tests — live gateway tools with mock HTTP server
└── fixtures/
    ├── sample-project/  # Synthetic Ignition project (directory)
    └── sample-project.zip

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Contributing

Contributions welcome. This is an open-source project under MIT license.

If you have real Ignition project exports you can share (or anonymized versions), those are especially valuable for testing edge cases.

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License

MIT

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