Announcing the Beta Release of the Developer MCP Server for Umbraco CMS

Written by Phil Whittaker

We're thrilled to announce the beta release of Developer MCP Server for the Umbraco CMS. The powerful Model Context Protocol server brings AI-powered content management capabilities directly to your Umbraco CMS workflow.

This release marks a significant milestone with major improvements in organisation, accessibility, and developer experience.

New Home in the Umbraco Organisation

Umbraco MCP has officially moved to the Umbraco GitHub organisation!

Previous location: https://github.com/Matthew-Wise/umbraco-mcp
New official home: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-MCP-Dev

Thanks Matt Wise for hosting this repo previously!

This move demonstrates Umbraco's commitment to AI-powered development tools and ensures better long-term support and community collaboration.

New NPM Package Location

Along with the repository migration, we've also moved to a new location in the official Umbraco NPM namespace:

New package: @umbraco-cms/mcp-dev
Installation: npx @umbraco-cms/mcp-dev@beta

This change allows us to publish dedicated MCP servers for specific use cases within each product (e.g., @umbraco-cms/mcp-editor).
It also enables us to release MCP servers aligned with each Umbraco product (e.g., @umbraco-engage/mcp-dev).

Umbraco 16 Support

This Umbraco MCP now supports Umbraco 16! This beta release marks our transition to following Umbraco's version alignment strategy.

Version Strategy

Umbraco 15 support - The previous version remains available at the original NPM location for continued Umbraco 15 compatibility
Umbraco 16+ support - All future releases will align with Umbraco CMS version numbers on the new NPM location
Between major versions, we’ll roll out minor releases to bring you new features and ongoing improvements
Forward compatibility - While newer versions may work with older Umbraco versions, we recommend using the matching version for optimal compatibility and support

Migration Path

If you're upgrading from Umbraco 15 to 16:

Upgrade your Umbraco CMS to version 16
Update the NPM package to use @umbraco-cms/mcp-dev@beta
Test your API user permissions to ensure compatibility
Update your environment configuration as needed

This version alignment ensures you always get the latest features and API compatibility improvements that match your Umbraco CMS installation.

Advanced Tool Collection Control via Env Variables

We’ve added powerful environment variables that give you fine-grained control over which tools are available to your AI assistants.

Tool-Level Control

UMBRACO_INCLUDE_TOOLS — Allow specific tools (comma-separated)
UMBRACO_EXCLUDE_TOOLS — Disallow specific tools (comma-separated)

Collection-Level Control

UMBRACO_INCLUDE_TOOL_COLLECTIONS — Enable entire tool collections
UMBRACO_EXCLUDE_TOOL_COLLECTIONS — Disable entire tool collections

Smart Collection System

Tool collections are grouped around Umbraco’s management API areas, making it easy to enable or disable whole functional domains. It also possible to combine the use of collections and individual tool addition / removal to give full control of tool availability.

Available Collections:

culture – Multi-language support
data-type – Data type management
dictionary – Translation management
document – Content
document-blueprint – Content templates
document-version – Version control
document-type – Document type definitions
language – Language configuration
log-viewer – System monitoring
media – Media management
media-type – Media type configuration
member – Member management
partial-view – Razor partial views
script – JavaScript files
stylesheet – CSS management
template – Razor templates
webhook – Event notifications

Context Window Optimisation

This granular approach helps you:

Fine control over the tools you require by combining tools collections and individual tools additionally and negatively
Reduce context window usage by including only relevant tools
Focus AI attention on specific functional areas
Respects dependencies (e.g., Document Blueprints require the Document collection)

The above will only add the document, media and templates collections and also remove the individual tools delete-document and empty recycle bin from your tool list.

Expanded Tool Coverage

This beta release significantly expands AI capabilities with full support for document versioning, template development, and asset management.

Document Version Management

Access and analyse version history
Roll back to previous versions
Protect key versions from automatic cleanup
Compare versions to understand content evolution

Template Development

Create, update, and delete Razor templates
Navigate template hierarchies
Search templates quickly

Asset Management

Partial Views — Manage reusable Razor components
Scripts — Handle JavaScript files and dependencies
Stylesheets — Manage CSS styling

Together, these tools provide AI assistants with complete control of Umbraco’s presentation layer — from content structure to final rendering.

Intelligent Permission System

This MCP respects your existing Umbraco permission model. Tools available to AI assistants are automatically filtered by:

Section access (Content, Media, Settings, etc.)
Tree-level permissions
User group memberships
Content-level permissions

This ensures AI assistants can only perform actions authorised for the API user.

What’s Next?

This beta lays the groundwork for the full 1.0 release which will include:

Parity with the Umbraco CMS management API (where it makes sense)
Full documentation on Umbraco Docs
Refine how data type and document property json fragments are handled
Support for .mcp.json files for dotenv configuration
Any other issues from the issue tracker
Improved culture support
Connected CMS version checks

We’re working on clear guidance and a standardised template to make it easier for both the Umbraco team and the community to create consistent, high-quality MCP products.

Get Involved

We’d love your feedback!

Try the beta and share your experiences
Report issues on GitHub
Suggest new features and improvements

Resources

GitHub Repository: umbraco/Umbraco-MCP
NPM Package: @umbraco-cms/mcp-dev
Documentation: See README.md in the repo
Umbraco API Users Guide: docs.umbraco.com

Ready to supercharge your Umbraco development with AI?
Install the beta in your favourite LLM tool today and experience the future of CMS development!

👉 Head over to the official Umbraco MCP repository on GitHub to explore, contribute, and connect with others shaping the future of AI-powered Umbraco tools.