Higress

by alibaba

Community API Development 8k likes

Higress is Alibaba's Envoy-based AI gateway that hosts MCP servers as Wasm plugins and can convert any OpenAPI spec into a new remote MCP server on the fly.

Run the Higress all-in-one image

docker run -d --name higress-ai -p 8001:8001 -p 8080:8080 -p 8443:8443 higress-registry.cn-hangzhou.cr.aliyuncs.com/higress/all-in-one:latest

Source: https://github.com/alibaba/higress

About

Higress is Alibaba's cloud-native API gateway, built on Envoy and Istio and extended through Wasm plugins, and it doubles as an MCP server host: it can run dozens of ready-made MCP server plugins directly inside the gateway, or turn an existing OpenAPI spec into a remote MCP server automatically with its openapi-to-mcp tool.

Because every MCP call passes through the same gateway layer as your regular API traffic, Higress applies the authentication, rate limiting, and audit logging it already does for REST and gRPC traffic to MCP tool calls too — so an AI agent calling a tool gets the same operational guarantees any other backend consumer already has.

Key features

  • Wasm-plugin architecture on Envoy/Istio for hosting MCP servers inside the gateway itself
  • openapi-to-mcp tool converts existing REST/OpenAPI specs into remote MCP servers automatically
  • Centralized auth, rate limiting, and audit logging in front of every MCP tool call
  • 60+ ready-made MCP server plugins (GitHub, Notion, weather, stock data, and more) shipped in-repo
  • Live hosted marketplace at mcp.higress.ai for trying Higress-hosted remote MCP servers
  • Kubernetes Ingress/Gateway API compatible, with service discovery from Nacos, ZooKeeper, Consul, and Eureka

Use cases

  • Standing up a self-hosted MCP marketplace for internal AI agents without provisioning a server per tool
  • Turning legacy REST APIs into agent-callable MCP tools with openapi-to-mcp instead of rewriting backends
  • Adding centralized rate limiting and audit logging in front of third-party MCP servers your team depends on
  • Running several Higress-hosted MCP server plugins behind one gateway endpoint

Available tools

openapi-to-mcp

Converts an OpenAPI specification into a ready-to-deploy remote MCP server exposing each endpoint as a callable tool.

MCP server plugin (wasm-go)

Wasm plugin format used to package and host an individual MCP server inside the Higress gateway.

hgctl mcp commands

CLI commands for registering, listing, and managing MCP servers running behind Higress.

REST-to-MCP config

Gateway-level configuration that maps existing REST routes onto an MCP tool-calling interface without touching backend code.

Frequently asked questions

Is Higress itself a single MCP server?

No — it's an API gateway that hosts other MCP servers as Wasm plugins and can generate new MCP servers from OpenAPI specs, rather than exposing one fixed toolset of its own.

Do I need Kubernetes to run it?

No — the all-in-one Docker image bundles the control plane, data plane, and console for standalone use; production setups typically add Istio/Kubernetes for scale.