Reverse proxy that refuses to forget your MCP session

What it does MCP Gateway is a reverse proxy and control plane built specifically for Model Context Protocol servers running in Kubernetes. It handles session-aware traffic routing, deploys and tears down server instances via RESTful APIs, and can optionally run LLM-driven agents that call registered tools over Server-Sent Events. Think of it as an API gateway that understands MCP’s conversational state and lifecycle.

The interesting bit Most gateways treat requests as anonymous and stateless; this one pins every session_id to a specific pod so stateful MCP conversations do not wander off mid-stream. It also layers a tool registry on top: developers publish tool definitions, and an internal Tool Gateway Router figures out which backend actually executes the request so callers do not have to.

Key highlights

• Session affinity routes all requests sharing a session_id to the same MCP server instance.
• Control-plane CRUD for adapters, tools, and (optionally) agents, plus deployment status and log access.
• Kubernetes-native architecture using StatefulSets and headless services.
• Entra ID authentication and RBAC via application roles such as mcp.admin.
• Stateless data-plane mode backed by a distributed session store for production.

Caveats

• The agents-and-sessions subsystem is preview-only, single-replica, and stores working state inside the gateway pod; the README explicitly warns against enabling it in multi-replica or multi-tenant production.

Verdict Worth evaluating if you are running MCP servers in Kubernetes and want session-aware routing with a unified control plane. Less compelling if you need a production-grade agent runtime today or an identity provider other than Entra ID, since the documented authorization model is built around Azure AD application roles.