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Quick Start

Get Django Admin MCP working in 5 minutes. This guide assumes you've already installed the package.

Step 1: Expose Your Models

Add the MCPAdminMixin to any ModelAdmin class. Set mcp_expose = True to expose CRUD tools:

admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from django_admin_mcp import MCPAdminMixin
from .models import Article, Author

@admin.register(Article)
class ArticleAdmin(MCPAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    mcp_expose = True  # Exposes list_article, get_article, create_article, etc.
    list_display = ['title', 'author', 'published']
    search_fields = ['title', 'content']

@admin.register(Author)
class AuthorAdmin(MCPAdminMixin, admin.ModelAdmin):
    # No mcp_expose = discoverable via find_models but no direct tools
    list_display = ['name', 'email']

Two-Level Exposure

Models with just MCPAdminMixin are discoverable via find_models but don't expose direct CRUD tools. Set mcp_expose = True to expose the full tool set.

Step 2: Create an API Token

  1. Go to Django admin: http://localhost:8000/admin/
  2. Navigate to Django Admin MCP > MCP Tokens
  3. Click Add MCP Token
  4. Fill in:
    • Name: A descriptive name (e.g., "MCP Token")
    • User: Select a user (for audit logging)
    • Groups/Permissions: Assign appropriate permissions
  5. Click Save
  6. Copy the generated token

Token Security

Tokens without permissions have no access (principle of least privilege). Make sure to assign the necessary permissions for the models you want to access.

Step 3: Configure Your MCP Client

Add the MCP server configuration to your MCP client. Create or edit the configuration file:

~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "django-admin": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp/",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}
.mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "django-admin": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp/",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_TOKEN_HERE with the token you created in Step 2.

Step 4: Start Using It

Restart your MCP client to load the new configuration. Then start interacting:

User: What models are available in Django admin?
Agent: [calls find_models tool]
I found the following models:
- article (tools exposed: list, get, create, update, delete)
- author (discoverable, no direct tools)

User: Show me the latest 10 articles
Agent: [calls list_article with limit=10]
Here are the 10 most recent articles...

User: Create a new article titled "Getting Started with Django"
Agent: [calls create_article with title="Getting Started with Django"]
Created article #15: "Getting Started with Django"

What's Next?