[Feature Request]: Future Directions for Configurable builds.

[terylt]

🧭 Type of Feature

Please select the most appropriate category:

• Enhancement to existing functionality
• New feature or capability
• New MCP-compliant server
• New component or integration
• Developer tooling or test improvement
• Packaging, automation and deployment (ex: pypi, docker, quay.io, kubernetes, terraform)
• Other (please describe below)

This would be an extension to PR #1207 . See that PR and documentation for context. Adding here so it's recorded somewhere.

Future Directions

The cforge gateway tool is actively evolving to support broader MCP ecosystem workflows. Planned enhancements include:

MCP Server Lifecycle Management

Currently, cforge gateway focuses on deploying external plugins. Future versions will support the complete lifecycle of MCP servers:

• Build & Deploy MCP Servers: Build MCP servers from Git repositories, similar to current plugin support
• Automatic Registration: Deploy MCP servers and automatically register them with the gateway as peers
• Plugin Attachment: Attach and configure plugins for registered MCP servers, enabling policy enforcement and filtering at the server level
• Configuration Generation: Generate MCP server configurations from templates
• Multi-Server Deployments: Deploy multiple MCP servers as a coordinated fleet

This will enable declarative deployment of complete MCP ecosystems from a single configuration file:

# Future concept
mcp_servers:
  - name: GitHubMCPServer
    repo: https://github.com/org/mcp-server-github.git
    auto_register: true          # Auto-register as gateway peer
    expose_tools: ["*"]          # Expose all tools through gateway
    expose_resources: ["repos"]  # Expose specific resources

    # Attach plugins to this MCP server
    plugins:
      - OPAPluginFilter          # Apply OPA policies to this server
      - PIIFilterPlugin          # Filter PII from responses

Live MCP Server Discovery

Automatic discovery and registration of running MCP servers:

• mDNS/Zeroconf Discovery: Automatically discover MCP servers on the local network
• Service Mesh Integration: Integrate with Kubernetes service discovery
• Dynamic Registration: Register servers at runtime without redeployment
• Health-Based Registration: Automatically register/deregister based on health checks

Container Security Policies

Attach security policies to built containers for enhanced compliance and governance:

• OPA Policy Bundles: Include Open Policy Agent (OPA) policies with container builds
• SBOM Generation: Automatically generate Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for built images
• Vulnerability Scanning: Integrate Trivy/Grype scans into build pipeline
• Policy Enforcement: Define and enforce security policies (allowed packages, CVE thresholds, etc.)
• Signing & Attestation: Sign built images with Cosign/Sigstore
• Runtime Security: Define AppArmor/SELinux profiles for deployed containers

Example future configuration:

# Future concept
security:
  policies:
    enabled: true
    opa_bundle: ./policies/container-security.rego
    sbom: true
    vulnerability_scan:
      enabled: true
      fail_on: critical
      allowlist: ["CVE-2024-1234"]
  signing:
    enabled: true
    keyless: true  # Sigstore keyless signing

These enhancements will make cforge gateway a comprehensive tool for building, securing, deploying, and managing the entire MCP infrastructure stack.

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📓 Additional Context

This would be an extension to PR #1207