FlowMCP Gateway overview
FlowMCP Gateway is an extension of Itential Gateway that connects external MCP servers to Itential Platform. It discovers the tools those servers expose and surfaces them in Gateway Manager as native gateway services, making external MCP-based capabilities available to Platform workflows and agents without requiring you to understand MCP or the underlying server architecture.
Why use FlowMCP Gateway?
External MCP servers expose specialized tools—for file operations, code execution, database access, API integrations, and more. Without FlowMCP Gateway, consuming those tools in Itential Platform requires custom integration work for each server. FlowMCP Gateway eliminates that overhead by handling connectivity and discovery automatically, so you can focus on building automation rather than managing integrations.
Once you register an MCP server, Itential Gateway discovers its tools and surfaces them through Gateway Manager as native gateway services. From there, those tools are available to Platform workflows and agents the same way any other gateway service is—no MCP-specific knowledge required on the consumer side.
How it works
Registering an MCP server involves three steps that Itential Gateway handles automatically after you provide the server details:
Connect
Itential Gateway establishes a connection to the MCP server using the transport you specify: stdio (subprocess), streamable-http, or SSE.
FlowMCP Gateway and FlowAI
FlowMCP Gateway extends the tool catalog available to agents. When you configure an agent’s tool access in Agent Builder, MCP-backed gateway services are available alongside Platform workflows, adapter and integration APIs, Lifecycle Manager actions, Compliance Plans, and other agents. You attach MCP-backed services to agents the same way you attach any other gateway service.
MCP-backed services also participate in agent project tool discovery. When a project is associated with an agent, all tools within that project—including any MCP-backed gateway services—are available to the agent at execution time.
FlowMCP Gateway and the Itential MCP Server
FlowMCP Gateway and the Itential MCP Server are related but distinct components that address opposite directions of MCP connectivity.
FlowMCP Gateway brings external MCP tools into Itential Platform. When you register an external MCP server, Itential Gateway discovers its tools and surfaces them in Gateway Manager so workflows and agents can invoke them natively.
The Itential MCP Server works in the opposite direction. It’s a separate open-source Python package that exposes Itential Platform capabilities—workflows, device management, job monitoring, Gateway services, and more—outward to external AI assistants such as Claude or GPT. It includes over 56 tools across categories like configuration management, workflow execution, and platform health, and supports multiple transport types and authentication methods.
The two components are independent and serve different integration patterns:
- Use FlowMCP Gateway when you want to bring external MCP-based tools into your Platform workflows and agents.
- Use the Itential MCP Server when you want an AI assistant to interact with and orchestrate your Itential Platform directly. Both can be used together. For example, you could use the Itential MCP Server to let Claude trigger Platform workflows, while those workflows invoke tools registered through FlowMCP Gateway.
For more information, see the Itential MCP Server repository.