azure-mcp-connection

Azure MCP Connection

The azure-mcp vendor runs Microsoft's official Azure MCP Server (mcr.microsoft.com/azure-sdk/azure-mcp) as a WYRE-built sidecar inside the MCP gateway. Each connecting MSP supplies its own Azure service principal; the gateway isolates credentials per tenant and scopes every request to the principal you registered.

Read-only deployment — read this first

The gateway runs the Azure MCP Server with the --read-only flag and a deliberately constrained namespace allowlist. Day-one the connector exposes exactly eight read-leaning namespaces:

monitor   pricing   quota   advisor   resourcehealth   applens   subscription   group

Write- and delete-capable namespaces (storage, keyvault, compute, role, aks, and others) are not enabled. This is intentional defense-in-depth: even if a service principal were over-privileged, the gateway cannot route a mutating call. As shipped, azure-mcp is an Azure observability, cost, and resource-health tool — nothing it does changes infrastructure.

Because the deployment is read-only, the service principal you connect should also be read-only. Grant Reader-tier roles and nothing more.

Step 1 — Register an Azure service principal

In the Azure tenant you want to manage, create an Azure AD app registration with a client secret. Either the portal (Microsoft Entra ID → App registrations → New registration) or the CLI works:

az ad sp create-for-rbac \
  --name "wyre-azure-mcp" \
  --role "Reader" \
  --scopes "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"

This emits three values you will need for the gateway:

• tenant → Tenant ID
• appId → Service Principal Client ID
• password → Service Principal Client Secret (shown once — capture it now)

If you reuse an existing app registration, generate a fresh client secret under Certificates & secrets and note its expiry — the connector stops working when the secret lapses.

Step 2 — Grant least-privilege RBAC

Assign Reader-tier roles only, at subscription scope (or management-group scope to cover several subscriptions). These two built-in roles cover all eight enabled namespaces:

Role	Why it is needed	Covers
Reader	Read-only visibility into resources, metrics, health, and inventory	monitor, resourcehealth, applens, advisor, subscription, group
Cost Management Reader	Read access to cost, pricing, and usage data	pricing, quota, cost-focused advisor recommendations

az role assignment create \
  --assignee "<service-principal-client-id>" \
  --role "Reader" \
  --scope "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"

az role assignment create \
  --assignee "<service-principal-client-id>" \
  --role "Cost Management Reader" \
  --scope "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"

For Log Analytics KQL queries via the monitor namespace, Reader on the subscription is sufficient because it inherits to the workspace. If a workspace lives outside the granted scope, add Log Analytics Reader on that specific workspace — still a Reader-tier role.

Do not grant write roles

Contributor, Owner, User Access Administrator, Key Vault Secrets User, and similar write/secret roles are unnecessary and must not be granted. The connector cannot use them — the gateway runs --read-only and the write namespaces are not in the allowlist. Granting them only widens the blast radius of a leaked secret with zero functional benefit. Least privilege here is both a security control and a no-cost decision.

Step 3 — Connect in the WYRE gateway

In the gateway connection UI, choose the azure-mcp vendor and supply:

1. Tenant ID — the directory the service principal lives in
2. Service Principal Client ID — the app registration's appId
3. Service Principal Client Secret — the secret from Step 1

The gateway authenticates the Azure MCP sidecar with these credentials and routes the eight enabled namespaces' tools into your session. No Azure credentials are stored client-side.

Verifying the connection

After connecting, confirm the connector is live with a harmless read:

1. List subscriptions (subscription namespace) — confirms the service principal authenticated and has at least Reader visibility.
2. List resource groups (group namespace) for one subscription — confirms scope is correct.
3. If either returns an empty result or an authorization error, the service principal lacks a role assignment at the expected scope, or the client secret has expired — re-check Step 2 and the secret's validity.

Troubleshooting

• AuthorizationFailed / empty subscription list — no Reader assignment at the subscription/management-group scope, or the assignment hasn't propagated yet (allow a few minutes).
• Cost or pricing tools return nothing — Cost Management Reader is missing.
• Connector worked, then stopped — the client secret expired. Generate a new one and update the gateway connection.
• A user asks for a write/provision/delete operation — that is out of scope for this connector by design. Explain that azure-mcp is a read-only deployment and the relevant namespace is not enabled; do not attempt a workaround.