Announcing jabali-mcp — drive your Jabali Panel with an AI assistant

[shukiv]

If you have been asking yourself @johnnyq @mrlp57 @mailanetworks @altomarketing why lately I am slow in responding to your issues, well this is why: https://jabali-panel.com/mcp/

What is it?

jabali-mcp is a Model Context Protocol server for Jabali Panel. It exposes the panel's REST API as tools an AI assistant can call, so you can manage your hosting in plain language from Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, or any MCP-capable client.

It's a thin, generated wrapper over the panel's existing API: it reimplements no auth, validation, or scoping — your API token acts as your user, and the panel enforces ownership on every call, exactly as it does for any other API client.

As of v0.3.1 it ships 75 tools covering domains, DNS, SSL, mail (mailboxes, forwarders, autoresponders), applications, databases and DB users, backups, cron, SSH keys, PHP settings, logs, and diagnostics. Full reference: docs/TOOLS.md.

What is it good for?

Things you can just ask for:

• "Why is example.com down?" — the diagnose_domain tool pulls config, SSL status, DNS records, recent nginx errors, and bandwidth in one shot and the assistant reads the tea leaves.
• "Set up mail for my new domain: two mailboxes, a catch-all forwarder to me, and turn on the vacation reply for August."
• "Add an A record for vpn pointing at 203.0.113.5, TTL 300."
• "Enable Let's Encrypt on all my domains that don't have it."
• "Create a database + user for the shop app and grant it read-write."
• "Show my disk usage and tell me what's eating it."
• "Add a cron job that runs my backup script every night at 3."

Safety (this fronts your hosting — it's designed around that)

• Read-only by default. Mutating tools exist only if you opt in with JABALI_MCP_ALLOW_WRITE=1.
• Destructive actions need a second, explicit confirm: true call — deletes, restores, password rotations. An AI cannot destroy anything in one step.
• Dry-run mode shows the exact request that would be sent without sending it.
• Your token is the boundary. A tenant token can only ever touch that tenant's resources — enforced server-side by the panel, not by the MCP server.

Quick start

1. Mint an API token in the panel: tenant shell → API Tokens (there's an MCP setup tab with per-client snippets).
2. Install: grab a release binary, or go install github.com/shukiv/jabali-mcp/cmd/jabali-mcp@latest.
3. Run jabali-mcp init — it prompts for your panel URL + token, verifies them, and writes the config.
4. Register with your client, e.g. Claude Code: claude mcp add jabali -- jabali-mcp

Start read-only. Add JABALI_MCP_ALLOW_WRITE=1 when you're comfortable, and JABALI_MCP_DRY_RUN=1 to watch what it would do first. The README covers Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, fleet mode (multiple panels), and running over SSH.

What should it do next?

This is where you come in. Current candidates on the list:

• CLI mode — the same tools as shell subcommands for SSH-only workflows
• MCP resources/prompts — panel runbooks and canned workflows exposed to the assistant
• More composites like diagnose_domain — e.g. a mail-deliverability triage (DNS + DKIM + recent mail logs in one answer)?

What would you ask an assistant to do on your panel? Which everyday task is still too many clicks? Anything you'd want gated even harder? Drop ideas below — tool requests, workflow stories, or safety concerns all welcome.

[altomarketing]

I personally find it an unnecessary energy wear and tear, and that it would not be a profiter for anyone.

cpanel, plesk, with the millions of dollars they have, they didn't do it yet, why is that ?

A hosting dashboard, is only used to install things, we don’t live within it, and customers just want it to work always, without ANY bugs.

Because not focusing efforts on things that really work and can grow this panel for the community?

For example integration with whcms, blesta or wisecp (which i use) so that millions around the world start using it.

See the example of CWP , it is used by millions, they charge it 1 dollar per month per server and its very obsolete because it stops its development in centos 7, really centos 7 ??? and jabali is using mcp ? It seems a lot difference to me.

I think if you focused on the efforts where the public really uses it, you would grow exponentially.

Dont add more features, just make it work without bugs, and integrate with billing panels.

[shukiv]

This is some great insights!
But, MCP is not a feature. It's a tool. I am constantly working on multiple jabali instances daily; either my clients or even some of you guys here. I discovered that the AI is looking all over the place when I give him a task to do in jabali. For example a simple question: "Why this website is down?" he made like 10 back and fourth and guessing before he found the issue. When I used the MCP, it did the same thing in 3 steps. So in my case an MCP really save me some time daily, takes less tokens and not hallucinating.

The billing feature is a great insight!! I will start working on the integration.

I am really trying to answer all your issues ASAP.
There are now around 5-10 issues daily, so things are taking a bit of time. But I will get to everyone soon.

[altomarketing]

Your answer and bug resolution is great, but I mean you don’t add new features that won’t use the majority, focus on what’s already used and need for a hosting dashboard. Use claude to evaluate these issues, also, marketing and integration with existing platforms to coexist.

If you do the integration with wisecp, I can donate without problems to be able to achieve it.

Look at the case of cwp that was abandoned or the case of aapanel, also quite interesting but as soon as you use the functionalities that you already have are paid, in addition to being Chinese and do not respond to the bugs like you do.

[shukiv]

Well, I added this feature because I needed it. And I can also say that it saves a lot of time when letting an AI manage a Jabali instance. This is not a feature for users, it's a feature for admins. To better handle jabali server. You can use it with your hermes agent and it give it commands to do stuff and it will know what to do. Normal users have no need for such thing, and I wasn't even aiming at it.
Well, there are some features (MCP is not one of them), that are very important for the panel. For example the feature I had worked on yesterday to get a free hostname #976 to use with the panel.
You were mentioning that it is much important to fix bugs first. Well, there were never an issue here that did not get an answer within 48 hours.

I am working on the billing integration. That was a great suggestion. The only thing that I need you to donate is your time testing the wiseCP integration with Jabali. That would help a lot. I am actually using Blesta, so it's easier for me to test on it, we just need a WHMCS user to test it there. :-)
I will let you know when billing integration is on.

[shukiv]

@altomarketing
https://github.com/shukiv/jabali-billing-modules/

[johnnyq]

Its pretty neat especially with AI Bot helpers, but yeah focus for sure in the panel itself is key. I plan on switching partially to Jabali Late August early September,
Honestly you sometimes need a fun diversion to reset focus. It gets boring working on the same thing so I totally get it, keep up the great work

[shukiv]

Well, I did that because I wanted to optimize the way claude or kimi work on a jabali server. This is why I did this. Read the answer I gave to altomarketing to understand why.

[mrlp57]

Interesting but not sure I would use it or have any need for it

I regularly use Microsoft copilot

[shukiv]

Well, it is very nice feature to have if you use an AI agent to administer your servers.

[mrlp57]

The ones that will work here require a cost for the AI side?
They tend to be very expensive

[shukiv]

The ones that will work here require a cost for the AI side? They tend to be very expensive

Yes.