Capabilities and Examples

The Operaton MCP server groups its tools by resource. The following sections describe each group. Which tools the assistant actually sees depends on the configured access control guards.

Process Definitions

Browse, inspect, suspend and delete deployed BPMN process definitions.

• List and count process definitions, filtered by key, name, version or tenant.
• Get a process definition by ID, or the latest version by key.
• Get the BPMN 2.0 XML of a process definition.
• Get process-level and activity-level statistics of running instances.
• Suspend or activate a process definition by key.
• Delete a process definition by ID or key, optionally with its instances and history.
• Restart historic process instances, synchronously or asynchronously.
• Set the history time to live of a process definition.
• List the process definitions called statically by a process definition.

Deployments

Deploy and manage BPMN, DMN, CMMN and form resources.

• Create a deployment from uploaded resources.
• List and count deployments.
• Get a deployment by ID and list its resources.
• Redeploy the resources of an existing deployment.
• Delete a deployment.

Process Instances

Start process instances and manage their lifecycle.

• Start a process instance by definition ID or key, with an optional business key and variables.
• List and count process instances.
• Get a process instance and its activity instance tree.
• Suspend or activate a process instance, or all instances of a process definition, key or tenant.
• Delete a process instance.
• Read and write process variables.

Tasks

Query and work on user tasks.

• List and count tasks with the task query filters.
• Get a task by ID.
• Claim, unclaim, delegate, resolve and complete tasks; complete with output variables.
• Set or change the assignee.
• Create a standalone task or update task properties.
• Read and write task variables.
• Throw a BPMN error from a task.

Jobs and Job Definitions

Inspect and control asynchronous jobs such as timers and asynchronous continuations.

• List and count jobs; get a job by ID.
• Execute a job immediately.
• Suspend or activate a job.
• Set the retries of a failed job.
• Get the exception stack trace of a failed job.
• List job definitions, get a job definition, and suspend or activate job definitions of a process definition.

Incidents

Query and resolve incidents, for example failed jobs or failed external tasks.

• List and count open incidents.
• Get an incident by ID.
• Resolve an incident.

Users and Groups

Manage users, groups and group memberships.

• List users, get a user profile, create and delete users.
• Update a user's profile or password.
• Unlock a user locked after too many failed login attempts.
• List, create and delete groups.
• Add users to groups and remove them.

History

Query the history of process data.

• Historic process instances, activity instances and task instances.
• Historic variable instances and incidents.
• Historic job logs.
• User operation log entries, i.e. the audit log of operations such as claiming or completing tasks.

Decisions

Inspect and evaluate DMN decisions.

• List decision definitions and get a decision definition by key.
• Get the DMN XML of a decision definition.
• Evaluate a decision with input variables.
• List decision requirements definitions.

Migration

Plan, execute, monitor and audit the migration of process instances between versions of a process definition.

Tool	Purpose
processInstance_listMigratable	List active instances that can be migrated, including conditions that block migration, such as call activities
processDefinition_getMigrationCandidates	Compare source and target activities: activities that can be mapped automatically, unmapped source activities and new target activities
migration_generatePlan	Generate a migration plan with automatically mapped instructions and a list of activities that need explicit mapping
migration_validatePlan	Validate a migration plan against a set of instances
migration_executeBatch	Execute a migration plan as a batch, split into chunks automatically; supports a dry run
migration_awaitBatch	Wait for batches to complete or time out, and report progress
migration_getBatchStatus	Get job counts and suspension state of a batch
migration_suspendBatch, migration_resumeBatch, migration_deleteBatch	Suspend, resume or cancel batches
migration_listBatches	List active migration batches
migration_getBatchFailures	Get failure details per instance, including error messages and stack traces
migration_retryFailedJobs	Reset the retries of all failed migration jobs of a batch
migration_getBatchSummary	Summarize submitted, succeeded and failed instances and the duration
migration_listAuditEntries	Query the user operation log for migration entries
migration_listHistoricBatches	Query completed migration batches

A typical migration with the assistant follows these steps:

1. Find migratable instances (processInstance_listMigratable).
2. Generate a plan (migration_generatePlan) and resolve unmapped activities.
3. Validate the plan (migration_validatePlan).
4. Execute the batch, first as a dry run (migration_executeBatch).
5. Wait for completion (migration_awaitBatch) and check the result (migration_getBatchSummary, migration_getBatchFailures).

Example Prompts

The following prompts show what an assistant can do with the MCP server. The assistant chooses the tools itself.

Deployments and Process Definitions

• "Deploy this BPMN file to Operaton and name the deployment loan-approval-v3."
• "List all deployed versions of the invoice-approval process."
• "Show me the BPMN XML of the latest version of the onboarding process."

Process Instances

• "Start the invoice-approval process with business key INV-2024-001 and set the variable amount to 15000."
• "List all active instances of the loan-approval process."
• "Which variables are set on process instance abc-123?"

User Tasks

• "Show me all unassigned tasks of the approvers group."
• "Claim task task-456 for user john.doe."
• "Complete the approval task for invoice INV-2024-001 and set approved to true."

Operations and Incidents

• "Are there failed jobs without retries left?"
• "Set the retries of job job-789 to 3 and execute it immediately."
• "List all open incidents of the payment-processing process."

History and Audit

• "Show me all invoice-approval instances completed last week."
• "Who completed the approval task for business key INV-2024-001, and when?"

Decisions

• "Deploy this DMN decision table for the loan eligibility check."
• "Evaluate the credit-check decision with income = 50000 and creditScore = 720."

Migration

• "Which instances of invoice-approval version 3 can be migrated to version 4?"
• "Create a migration plan from version 3 to version 4 of invoice-approval, validate it and run a dry run."