# The panel as an agent (MCP)

> Giving an assistant a key to the panel, what it may do with it, and why the key is shown only once.

Source: https://stygion.eu/docs/panel/mcp
Updated: 2026-08-30

![Admin → Application API, before a key is configured](https://stygion.eu/shots/panel/mcp.webp)

The panel can talk to an assistant — Claude, or any other MCP client.
Not by scraping screens: it has an interface of its own that says what
it can do, so the assistant does not have to guess.

What it is good for: "restart Survival and tell me what it got stuck
on", "back up every server before I touch the modpack", "why did
Creative not come up".

## Turning it on

**Admin → Application API**. Until a key is configured the screen says
so outright — and the whole surface answers 404 from outside, so it
cannot be told apart from one that does not exist. That is deliberate.

It is switched on by adding `STYGION_MCP_KEY` to the env file and
restarting the panel; the installer has generated one since 0.3.0:

```
grep STYGION_MCP_KEY /etc/stygion/*.env
```

With a key, the screen shows the address an assistant connects to and
how many tools the panel offers it. The key itself is behind a second
click, and revealing it is written to the
[activity log](/docs/panel/nastaveni).

## What the assistant may do

What the key may. No more.

Think of a key as an account, not a switch: everything done with it
appears in that server's activity — under the key, not under you. If
something happens, it is visible that an agent did it.

A tool calls the same service the panel does, so a rule the panel
enforces is a rule the assistant is held to as well. No back doors.

## Revoking

A key can be revoked. A revoked key stops working immediately, even
mid-task.

Revoke one when you have stopped using that client, when it has been on
somebody else's machine, or simply now and then. Issuing a new one takes
seconds — far cheaper than wondering where the old one ended up.

Next: [Nodes and more than one machine](/docs/panel/uzly).