cisco-smart-licensing-mcp-community

A community Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for the Cisco cloud Smart
Software Manager (CSSM) license inventory —
software.cisco.com/#SmartLicensing-Inventory.

It exposes read-only tools for Smart Accounts, Virtual Accounts, and their
license entitlements.

Why not just scrape the web UI?

The CSSM inventory page sits behind Cisco SSO (SAML + MFA). Automating that
login is brittle and against the spirit of the platform. Instead this server
uses Cisco's official machine-to-machine OAuth 2.0 client-credentials flow:

client_id + client_secret ──► id.cisco.com token endpoint ──► short-lived Bearer token
                                                               │
                              Cisco "Software APIs" (apx.cisco.com) ◄┘

Base URL, token endpoint, and endpoint paths are taken from Cisco's official
Software APIs OpenAPI spec (v1.0.2): base https://apx.cisco.com/v1/software/apis,
token endpoint https://id.cisco.com/oauth2/default/v1/token, OAuth2
client-credentials grant.

No human login, SAML, or MFA is ever in the request path. You get the
client_id/secret by registering an app on the
Licensing Developer portal
— see ACCESS_GUIDE.md for the exact click-by-click steps.

Architecture

Concern	Where
Config (env only)	`src/cisco_smart_licensing_mcp/config.py`
OAuth2 token cache	`auth.py` (`ClientCredentialsTokenProvider`)
REST client	`client.py` (retries, 401 re-auth, SSRF allowlist)
Tool registration	`registry.py`
Tools	`tools/accounts.py`, `tools/inventory.py`
Logging (redacted)	`logging.py`

Transport: stdio by default (per MCP security guidance). HTTP is opt-in
and binds to 127.0.0.1 only.
Read-only by construction: mutating tools are not registered unless
SL_ENABLE_WRITES=true (there are none in v0.1).
Secrets: client_secret is a SecretStr, sourced from the environment,
never logged, never written to disk. Tokens/JWTs are redacted in logs and in
optional evidence snapshots.
SSRF guard: token + API hosts must end in .cisco.com; the passthrough
tool accepts relative paths only.

Tools

All read-only, mapped to confirmed GET endpoints in the Software APIs spec:

Tool	Endpoint
`sl_list_smart_accounts`	`GET /accounts/v1/user/search-smart-accounts`
`sl_list_virtual_accounts`	`GET /pnp/v2/accounts/{smartAccountDomain}/virtual-accounts`
`sl_search_product_instances`	`GET /licensing/v2/accounts/{smartAccountDomain}/devices`
`sl_get_subscription_consumption`	`GET /ea/v1/subscription/account/{smartAccountDomain}/consumption`
`sl_get_license_inventory`	GET passthrough to any confirmed relative path (escape hatch)

More endpoints available. The spec has 130 operations (license summary,
history, SLR reservations, tokens, PnP devices, etc.). The passthrough
(sl_get_license_inventory) reaches any read-only one today; high-value ones
can be promoted to named tools on request. Note POST /licensing/v2/get-summary
needs numeric X-CSW-SMART-ACCOUNT-ID / X-CSW-VIRTUAL-ACCOUNT-ID headers, so
it's intentionally left for a dedicated tool.

Install

git clone https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/cisco-smart-licensing-mcp-community.git
cd cisco-smart-licensing-mcp-community
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .            # add ".[dev]" for tests/linting
cp .env.example .env        # then fill in SL_CLIENT_ID / SL_CLIENT_SECRET

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cisco-smart-licensing": {
      "command": "/path/to/cisco-smart-licensing-mcp-community/scripts/run-cursor.sh"
    }
  }
}

Smoke test (no credentials needed)

With an empty .env, the server boots and registers zero tools — this
verifies the binary and wiring without any tenant:

.venv/bin/cisco-smart-licensing-mcp   # Ctrl-C to exit; watch stderr for "boot complete"

Tests

All tests are offline (HTTP is mocked with pytest-httpx); no Cisco credentials
are needed:

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Getting access

You have a Smart Account and admin rights but no API app yet. Follow
ACCESS_GUIDE.md — it walks you through creating the
client-credentials app, associating the Software APIs via Request Access,
and the ~30-minute propagation window.

Contributing, security, and license

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md and the
Code of Conduct.
Please report security issues privately as described in SECURITY.md.
Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.