This is a very initial idea of a Local MCP server, which I name it "CLI as MCP".

Azure CLI could provide a command az mcp up to serve as a local MCP server through stdio.
Through this way, Azure CLI could integrate with VSCode Copilot Chat and other MCP client.

How to Install

Build the mcp server and install it as an Azure CLI extension.

azdev extension build mcp-server
az extension add --source azure-cli-extensions\src\mcp-server\dist\mcp_server-1.0.0b1-py3-none-any.whl

Enable MCP Server in VSCode

In VSCode, click the tools icon in Copilot Chat.

Select Add More Tools

Select Add MCP Server...

Select the Command(stdio) type

Input az mcp up to start the Local MCP Server

Enable MCP Server in VSCode (Alternative)

Add a new file named mcp.json in .vscode folder. Add the following config in this file:

{
	"servers": {
		"AzureLocalMcpServer": {
			"type": "stdio",
			"command": "az",
			"args": [
				"mcp",
				"up"
			]
		}
	},
	"inputs": []
}

How to use

After adding the Server, you should see two new tools in your toolset.

You can now use it in the Agent Mode!

This checklist is used to make sure that common guidelines for a pull request are followed.

Related command

az mcp up

General Guidelines

• Have you run azdev style <YOUR_EXT> locally? (pip install azdev required)
• Have you run python scripts/ci/test_index.py -q locally? (pip install wheel==0.30.0 required)
• My extension version conforms to the Extension version schema

For new extensions:

• My extension description/summary conforms to the Extension Summary Guidelines.

About Extension Publish

There is a pipeline to automatically build, upload and publish extension wheels.
Once your pull request is merged into main branch, a new pull request will be created to update src/index.json automatically.
You only need to update the version information in file setup.py and historical information in file HISTORY.rst in your PR but do not modify src/index.json.