IBM Sales Guidance Tool — MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes the IBM Sales Guidance Tool as tools Bob can invoke directly from chat.

Once registered, Bob can:

• Ask the IBM AskSales AI assistant questions about products, deals, and competitors
• Search IBM AskSales content (playbooks, battle cards, competitive intel)
• Generate a full 4-section Client Roadmap for any named account
• Check live Watson Assistant + AskSales connectivity status

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Tools

Tool	Description
sales_guidance_diag	Check Watson + AskSales connectivity and latency — run this first when debugging
sales_guidance_chat	Ask the AskSales Watson Assistant a question (product knowledge, objections, strategy)
sales_guidance_asksales	Search IBM AskSales content library for playbooks or competitive intel
sales_guidance_roadmap	Generate a full 4-section IBM Client Roadmap (takes 30–90s)

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Setup

1. Install dependencies and build

cd sales-guidance-mcp
npm install
npm run build

2. Register with Bob

Add the following to your .bob/mcp.json (workspace scope):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sales-guidance": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/sales-guidance-mcp/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "SALES_GUIDANCE_URL": "https://ibm-sales-guidance-tool.2ck01rg2j69e.us-east.codeengine.appdomain.cloud",
        "SELLER_EMAIL": "your.email@ibm.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace /absolute/path/to/sales-guidance-mcp with the real path on your machine.

3. Verify

Ask Bob: "Check the sales guidance tool status" — it will call sales_guidance_diag and report Watson + AskSales connectivity.

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Configuration

All config is via environment variables in the env block of mcp.json:

Variable	Required	Default	Description
SALES_GUIDANCE_URL	✅ Yes	—	Base URL of the deployed Sales Guidance Tool
SELLER_EMAIL	No	ibm-bob@ibm.com	IBM seller email passed to Watson as user_id and email_address skill variable
REQUEST_TIMEOUT_MS	No	100000	HTTP timeout in ms. Roadmap calls can take up to 90s — keep this above 90000.

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Architecture

Bob (chat) ──── MCP tool call ────► sales-guidance-mcp (stdio)
                                         │
                                         │ HTTPS
                                         ▼
                              IBM Sales Guidance Tool
                              (Code Engine, us-east)
                                         │
                              ┌──────────┴──────────┐
                              │                     │
                    Watson Assistant          IBM AskSales
                    (AskSales skill)          (when configured)

The MCP server is a thin HTTP client — it calls the deployed Next.js app's API routes over HTTPS. No local services, no Docker, no credentials stored in this repo.

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Known issues

Watson Assistant / AskSales outage (2026-07-21)

IBM reported degradation on IBM product queries in Watson Assistant / AskSales. Symptoms: sales_guidance_chat and sales_guidance_roadmap time out. Run sales_guidance_diag — if watson.latencyWarning is set, the outage is still active. Retry later.

AskSales search returns empty results

sales_guidance_asksales requires real AskSales credentials on the server side (ASKSALES_API_URL, ASKSALES_API_KEY). Run sales_guidance_diag — if asksales.enabled is false, placeholder credentials are in use and this is expected.

Roadmap timeout

The sales_guidance_roadmap tool has a 100s client timeout (default). Watson takes 30–90s to generate a full 4-section roadmap. If you consistently hit timeouts, set REQUEST_TIMEOUT_MS=120000 in the env block.

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Development

npm run build    # compile TypeScript → build/index.js
npm run dev      # watch mode

The source is a single file: src/index.ts. Each tool is registered with server.registerTool() using the MCP SDK v2 API.