Epic Goal

• Develop MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools that enable comprehensive interaction with Backstage Software Templates functionality
• Provide developers and AI assistants with programmatic access to query, inspect, and manage software templates in RHDH
• Enable automated software template lifecycle management through standardized MCP tool interfaces

Why is this important?

• Software templates are core to developer productivity in RHDH, enabling rapid project bootstrapping and standardized development patterns
• Current manual template discovery and management processes are inefficient for automated workflows and AI-assisted development
• MCP tools will enable AI assistants to help developers discover appropriate templates and understand their requirements programmatically
• Template metadata access will improve decision-making by providing clear visibility into steps, dependencies, and parameters before template usage
• Automated template registration capabilities will streamline DevOps workflows and enable dynamic template management based on organizational needs
• Standardized programmatic access will reduce friction in template adoption and enable better integration with existing development toolchains

Scenarios

1. Query the list of software templates available to RHDH
   • MCP tool to query the list of software templates available to the user in RHDH, and return metadata about them 
2. Software template metadata
   • The tool should be able to fetch relevant metadata about software templates and return them back in a format that MCP clients can manipulate as needed. Information like dependencies, required parameters, etc. 
3. Register / unregister software templates
   • MCP tool to register a software template at a given Git repository. Similarly, it should be able to unregister specific software templates. Authentication should be via specifically configured static token with catalog write permissions

Acceptance Criteria (Mandatory)

• MCP Tool plugin(s) implementing the actions listed above
• Eval test data to provide reference data for executing the tools with MCP clients
• CI - MUST be running successfully with tests automated
• Release Technical Enablement - Provide necessary release enablement details and documents.
• QE can get started using redhat-ai-dev versions of the plugin images if we happen to be stuck on https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHDHPAI-1195 wrt getting PRs merged into the overlays repo (given our experience with 1.8); we'll still get started on 1195 prior to early Dec with the intent to have it done sooner rather than later

Dependencies (internal and external)

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Previous Work (Optional):

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Open questions::

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Done Checklist

• Acceptance criteria are met
• Non-functional properties of the Feature have been validated (such as performance, resource, UX, security or privacy aspects)
• User Journey automation is delivered
• Support and SRE teams are provided with enough skills to support the feature in production environment