Model Context Protocol (MCP)

MCP — the Model Context Protocol — is the open standard for letting AI agents talk to tools and data sources. Restura plays both sides.

As an MCP client

Point Restura at any MCP server and explore it like any other request target.

• streamable-http transport — the modern wire shape.
• http-sse transport — older shape; desktop only the web build supports only streamable-http.
• List tools — see the server’s exposed tool catalogue with schemas.
• Invoke a tool — fill in the JSON schema, send, watch the streamed result.
• List prompts / list resources — for servers that expose them.

Desktop protocol compatibility

The desktop app connects with the current MCP v2 client. Its automatic version negotiation supports both modern v2 servers and legacy MCP servers during the connection handshake, so saved MCP requests do not need a protocol-version setting.

Legacy negotiation is handled inside the v2 client. Restura does not construct a second SDK client or retry authentication, TLS, DNS/SSRF policy, network, or timeout failures, so those errors remain visible rather than being masked by another connection attempt.

This compatibility path is desktop-only. The web and self-hosted clients retain their existing stateless Worker proxy behavior, and http-sse remains desktop-only.

After connecting, Restura uses the v2 client’s typed operations for every standard request supported by the negotiated protocol era: ping, completion, legacy logging level, tools, prompts, resources (including subscriptions), and v2 server discovery. That preserves the client’s protocol-era validation, pagination, caching, and modern HTTP behavior instead of treating a production MCP server as an untyped JSON-RPC endpoint. Non-standard server extensions remain explicit requests so their server-provided JSON-RPC errors can still be inspected.

Modern server coverage

Restura’s v2 test server exercises modern discovery alongside tools, prompts, resources, cache hints, schema-declared request headers, multi-round input_required responses, and change subscriptions. The MCP workspace currently presents the core catalogue and request operations; it does not yet provide dedicated UI flows for interactive input_required prompts or managing subscriptions.

The same URL validation, DNS pinning, header policy, and Electron IPC validation apply before the SDK is allowed to connect.

As an MCP server

Restura can be an MCP server, exposing your saved data to an agent like Claude.

The stdio server uses the v2 server package with its built-in legacy transport compatibility, so modern and legacy clients are served without retaining the v1 SDK.

The desktop app exposes these tools:

• list_collections — enumerate your collections.
• list_requests — browse requests inside a collection (filterable by folder).
• list_environments — list environments and their currently active variables.
• get_environment — fetch one environment’s details, with secrets auto-redacted.
• get_history — query past request executions with filters and a limit.

Every tool is consent-gated (the user approves the connecting agent) and every response is redacted so secrets, tokens, and auth headers don’t leak into agent context.

See the MCP server mode guide for setup.

Related

• AI assistant — Restura’s built-in chat with OpenAI / Anthropic / OpenRouter, which can use request context and tools.
• MCP server mode — set up Restura as an MCP server in your agent.