Managed Notifications Search MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that enables AI agents to search through OpenShift service notification logs using semantic search powered by ChromaDB and sentence transformers.

Overview

This server provides semantic search capabilities over OpenShift service notification JSON files, allowing AI agents to find relevant notifications based on problem descriptions. The system uses vector embeddings to enable semantic matching rather than just keyword search.

Features

• Semantic Search: Find notifications based on problem descriptions using vector similarity
• Metadata Enrichment: Results include folder categories (hcp, osd, rosa, etc.), severity levels, and full notification data
• Efficient Container Deployment: Multi-stage Docker build with optimized layering for embedding regeneration
• Database Statistics: Get insights into available notifications and categories

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.13+
• uv (Python package manager)
• Git with submodules
• Podman or Docker (for containerized deployment)

Local Development

1. Clone and setup the repository:

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd managed-notifications-mcp
   git submodule update --init --recursive
   

2. Install dependencies:

   uv sync
   

3. Build the embeddings database:

   uv run build-embeddings
   

4. Run the MCP server:

   uv run serve
   

Container Deployment

1. Build the container:

   podman build -t managed-notifications-search .
   

2. Run the container:

   podman run -p 8000:8000 managed-notifications-search
   

MCP Client Configuration

To connect to the server from an MCP client, use the provided configuration file:

File: mcp-config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "service-logs": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp",
      "auth": {}
    }
  }
}

This configuration enables MCP clients (like Claude Desktop) to connect to the running server on localhost port 8000.

Usage

The server provides two main MCP tools:

search_service_logs

Search for notifications matching a problem statement.

Parameters:

• problem_statement (required): Description of the issue to search for
• max_results (optional, default: 5): Maximum number of results to return

Example:

# Search for pod scheduling issues
results = search_service_logs(
    problem_statement="pods stuck in pending state unable to schedule",
    max_results=3
)

Important Note on Variable Interpolation: Many service notifications contain variable placeholders like ${TIME}, ${REASON}, ${POD}, ${NAMESPACE} that need to be replaced with actual values. When using this tool:

1. Check the variables field in each result to see what variables need interpolation
2. Ask users for specific values for each variable when presenting a notification
3. Help interpolate variables into the notification text before sending to customers

Common variables include:

• ${TIME}: Timestamp when the issue occurred
• ${REASON}: Specific reason for the failure
• ${POD}: Name of the affected pod
• ${NAMESPACE}: Kubernetes namespace
• ${CLUSTER_ID}: Cluster identifier
• ${NUM_OF_WORKERS}: Number of worker nodes

get_database_stats

Get statistics about the notification database.

Returns:

• Total number of notifications
• Available folder categories
• Severity levels
• Service names
• Database path

Architecture

Components

1. Embedding Script (scripts/build_embeddings.py):

   • Processes all JSON files in the managed-notifications submodule
   • Extracts searchable text from notification fields
   • Creates vector embeddings using sentence-transformers
   • Stores embeddings in ChromaDB with metadata

2. MCP Server (main.py):

   • FastMCP-based server with search tools
   • Loads pre-built ChromaDB database on startup
   • Provides semantic search and database statistics

3. Container Configuration:

   • Multi-stage build separating embedding creation from runtime
   • Optimized layering to minimize rebuilds
   • Non-root user for security

Data Flow

1. Build Phase: JSON files � Text extraction � Vector embeddings � ChromaDB
2. Runtime Phase: Problem statement � Query embedding � Similarity search � Formatted results

Notification Categories

The system organizes notifications by folder structure:

• hcp: Hosted Control Plane notifications
• osd: OpenShift Dedicated notifications
• rosa: Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS notifications
• cluster: General cluster notifications
• ocm: OpenShift Cluster Manager notifications

Development

Project Structure

├── main.py                    # MCP server implementation
├── scripts/
│   └── build_embeddings.py   # Embedding creation script
├── managed-notifications/     # Git submodule with notification JSONs
├── Containerfile             # Multi-stage container build
├── .containerignore          # Container build exclusions
└── pyproject.toml            # Python dependencies

Embedding Model

The system uses the all-MiniLM-L6-v2 sentence transformer model by default. You can override this by setting the EMBEDDING_MODEL environment variable in the embedding script.

Database Structure

Each notification is stored with:

• Document: Concatenated searchable text (summary, description, tags, etc.)
• Metadata: File path, folder category, severity, service name, variables list, full JSON
• Embedding: 384-dimensional vector (for default model)
• Variables: Extracted variable placeholders (e.g., ["TIME", "REASON", "POD"]) for interpolation

Contributing

1. Ensure the managed-notifications submodule is up to date
2. Run the embedding script after notification changes
3. Test both local and containerized deployments
4. Validate search results for accuracy and relevance