MCP ZAP Server MCP server

MCP ZAP Server

Give AI agents a safe, self-hosted ZAP operator for guided web security scans, findings, reports, and production guardrails.

Note This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by the ZAP project. It is an independent implementation.

mcp-zap-server exposes ZAP through MCP over streamable HTTP so agentic tools can run operator-controlled security workflows without brittle glue scripts or unsafe scanner access.

Use it when you want:

• safe agentic scanning with guided defaults for spider, active scan, passive scan, API imports, findings, and reports
• operator control through API-key or JWT auth, tool scopes, runtime policy bundles, rate limits, and audit events
• self-hosted deployment with Docker Compose for local adoption and Helm for Kubernetes
• expert ZAP access when you intentionally need lower-level ZAP context, user, scan, and report controls

Full documentation: danieltse.org/mcp-zap-server

Watch the demo: browser demo or YouTube

Quick Start

Prerequisites:

• Docker 20.10+
• Docker Compose v2 (docker compose)
• your own MCP client with Streamable HTTP and custom-header support

git clone https://github.com/dtkmn/mcp-zap-server.git
cd mcp-zap-server

./bin/bootstrap-local.sh
./dev.sh
./bin/self-serve-doctor.sh

Those scripts are the supported local happy path, not hidden magic:

• bootstrap-local.sh creates .env, generates local API keys, and prepares the ZAP workspace.
• dev.sh starts the Docker Compose stack with the faster JVM image.
• self-serve-doctor.sh checks Docker, auth, MCP initialize, tools/list, guided tools, and a harmless tool call.

The JVM image remains Java 25 end to end: source compilation, bytecode, and runtime all target Java 25. Its final runtime is distroless, so it intentionally contains no shell, package manager, or curl. A small built-in HTTP probe keeps the normal Docker Compose health status; docker compose ps still reports the MCP service as (healthy) after startup.

Connect your MCP client:

• MCP endpoint for host-side clients: http://localhost:7456/mcp
• Authentication: send MCPAPIKEY from .env in the X-API-Key header
• Cursor config example: examples/cursor/mcp.json
• Client compatibility and setup

The stack runs the MCP server, ZAP, and demo targets. Install and configure your preferred MCP client separately.

When scanning the bundled demo targets, use the container URLs that ZAP can reach from inside Compose:

• Juice Shop scan target: http://juice-shop:3000
• Petstore scan target: http://petstore:8080

After connecting, try this first prompt:

Use the guided ZAP tools to crawl http://juice-shop:3000. Wait for the crawl
and passive analysis to finish, show a findings summary, generate an HTML
report, and read it back through MCP. Do not run an active scan.

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.