Agentic Development

BackAnt ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes the CLI as tools your AI agent can call directly. Instead of typing commands yourself, your agent scaffolds routes, generates APIs, and analyzes your project in response to natural language.

Quickstart with the wizard

The fastest way to connect your agent is the BackAnt wizard. Run it from your terminal:

npx backant@latest

The wizard will:

Open a browser-based authorization page for you to log in to your BackAnt account
Exchange the session for an OAuth access token automatically
Detect installed coding agents on your machine
Write the correct MCP configuration to each agent’s config file

Supported agents

The wizard supports automatic configuration for the following coding agents:

Editors & IDEs

Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Zed, Warp

AI coding tools

Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, Continue, Copilot, Augment, Amp, Codex, Qodo Gen, Qwen Coder, Trae, Vibe, Crush, Kiro, OpenCode, Antigravity

Other

Amazon Q, Bolt AI, Factory, Gemini CLI, LM Studio, Perplexity

Installation modes

When prompted, choose between:

Mode	Description
Remote (recommended)	Connects to `https://mcp.backant.io/mcp` — no local setup required
Local	Connects to `http://localhost:8000/mcp` — requires the MCP server running via Docker locally

Available MCP tools

Once connected, your agent has access to the following tools:

Tool	Description
`generate_api`	Scaffold a new BackAnt Flask API project
`generate_route`	Add a route (+ service, repository, model) to an existing project
`generate_subroute`	Add a subroute endpoint to an existing route
`analyze_project`	Inspect the structure of an existing BackAnt project
`validate_spec`	Validate a JSON spec without generating any files
`get_project_info`	Get metadata (routes, models, docker presence) about a project
`check_route_exists`	Check whether a specific route has been generated

Available MCP resources

Your agent can also read the following documentation resources directly:

Resource URI	Content
`backant://docs/getting-started`	End-to-end quickstart guide
`backant://docs/architecture`	Four-layer architecture reference
`backant://docs/cli-reference`	Full CLI command reference
`backant://docs/spec-format`	Annotated JSON spec format
`backant://docs/report-output`	Machine-readable output schema

Local MCP server

You can run the MCP server locally using Docker Compose:

git clone https://github.com/backant/backant-mcp
cd backant-mcp
docker compose up -d

Verify it is running:

curl http://localhost:8000/health
# {"status": "ok"}

Then run the wizard and select Local mode, or manually select Local in the wizard’s installation mode prompt.

​Quickstart with the wizard

​Supported agents

​Installation modes

​Available MCP tools

​Available MCP resources

​Local MCP server