Google MCP Toolbox

1.8.0 (2026-07-28)

Features

• Add groups support (#3605) (e75ec3b)
• prebuilt: Migrate skills-repo toolsets to kind: group with descriptions (#3595) (b895b36)
• server: Add /healthz endpoint for container health checks (#3060) (d5aefbc)
• skills: Add --group flag to generate a skill from one group (#3585) (c1abd4f)
• skills: Default --name to --group, --toolset, or single --prebuilt name (#3586) (2b33b08)
• skills: Make description optional during skills gen (#3584) (d0a8f14)
• tool/looker: Add get_field_value_suggestions tool (#3696) (3debe81)
• tools/dataplex-update-data-product-aspects: Add dataplex-update-data-product-aspects tool (#3607) (f940937)
• Update draft specs to 2026-07-28 (#3699) (cf128ff)

Bug Fixes

• Re-add name validation to tools name (#3654) (944f6ce)
• Re-add tool validation during startup (#3705) (25ce953)
• server: Sort default toolset alphabetically for stable ordering (#3539) (e5da24c)
• source/cloud-sql-admin: Validate source instance for backup-run restore (#3555) (3ebe500)
• source/dataplex: Cleanup Dataplex Data Product resources that may have leaked due to previously aborted tests (#3627) (3fb5a3f)
• source/http: Block CGNAT 100.64.0.0/10 in default SSRF guard (#3625) (a0f36f4)
• tools/looker: Enhance looker-run-dashboard to handle result maker structures and merge queries (#3698) (7666bc0)
• tools/looker: Log request/response traces at debug, not error ([#3552](https

<div align="center">

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MCP Toolbox for Databases

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MCP Toolbox for Databases is an open source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects your AI agents, IDEs, and applications directly to your enterprise databases.

<p align="center">

<img src="docs/en/documentation/introduction/architecture.png" alt="architecture" width="50%"/>

</p>

It serves a dual purpose:

1. Ready-to-use MCP Server (Build-Time): Instantly connect Gemini CLI, Google Antigravity, Claude Code, Codex, or other MCP clients to your databases using our prebuilt generic tools. Talk to your data, explore schemas, and generate code without writing boilerplate.
2. Custom Tools Framework (Run-Time): A robust framework to build specialized, highly secure AI tools for your production agents. Define structured queries, semantic search, and NL2SQL capabilities safely and easily.

This README provides a brief overview. For comprehensive details, see the full documentation.

[!IMPORTANT]

Repository Name Update: The genai-toolbox repository has been officially renamed to mcp-toolbox. To ensure your local environment reflects the new name, you may update your remote:

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/googleapis/mcp-toolbox.git

[!NOTE]

This solution was originally named “Gen AI Toolbox for Databases” (github.com/googleapis/genai-toolbox) as its initial development predated MCP, but was renamed to align with the MCP compatibility.

<!-- TOC ignore:true -->

Table of Contents

• Why MCP Toolbox?
• Quick Start: Prebuilt Tools
• Quick Start: Custom Tools
• Install & Run the Toolbox server
• Connect to Toolbox
• MCP Client
• Toolbox SDKs: Integrate with your Application
• Additional Features
• Versioning
• Contributing
• Community

---

Why MCP Toolbox?

• Out-of-the-Box Database Access: Prebuilt generic tools for instant data exploration (e.g., list_tables, execute_sql) directly from your IDE or CLI.
• Custom Tools Framework: Build production-ready tools with your own predefined logic, ensuring safety through Restricted Access, Structured Queries, and Semantic Search.
• Simplified Development: Integrate tools into your Agent Development Kit (ADK), LangChain, LlamaIndex, or custom agents in less than 10 lines of code.
• Better Performance: Handles connection pooling, integrated auth (IAM), and end-to-end observability (OpenTelemetry) out of the box.
• Enhanced Security: Integrated authentication for more secure access to your data.
• End-to-end Observability: Out of the box metrics and tracing with built-in support for OpenTelemetry.

---

Quick Start: Prebuilt Tools

Stop context-switching and let your AI assistant become a true co-developer. By connecting your IDE to your databases with MCP Toolbox, you can query your data in plain English, automate schema discovery and management, and generate database-aware code.

You can use the Toolbox in any MCP-compatible IDE or client (e.g., Gemini CLI, Google Antigravity, Claude Code, Codex, etc.) by configuring the MCP server.

Prebuilt tools are also conveniently available via the Google Antigravity MCP Store with a simple click-to-install experience.

1. Add the following to your client's MCP configuration file (usually mcp.json or claude_desktop_config.json):

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "toolbox-postgres": {
          "command": "npx",
          "args": [
            "-y",
            "@toolbox-sdk/server",
            "--prebuilt=postgres",
            "--stdio"
          ]
        }
      }
    }

1. Set the appropriate environment variables to connect, see the Prebuilt Tools Reference.

When you run Toolbox with a --prebuilt=<database> flag, you instantly get access to standard tools to interact with that database. You can also specify a specific toolset using the --prebuilt=<database>/<toolset> syntax (e.g., --prebuilt=postgres/data to only load SQL tools).

Supported databases currently include:

• Google Cloud: AlloyDB, BigQuery, Cloud SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server), Spanner, Firestore, Knowledge Catalog (formerly known as Dataplex).
• Other Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, CockroachDB, ClickHouse, Couchbase, Neo4j, Snowflake, Trino, and more.

For a full list of available tools and their capabilities across all supported databases, see the Prebuilt Tools Reference.

See the Install & Run the Toolbox server section for different execution methods like Docker or binaries.

[!TIP]

For users looking for a managed solution, Google Cloud MCP Servers

provide a managed MCP experience with prebuilt tools; you can learn more about the differences here.

---

Quick Start: Custom Tools

Toolbox can also be used as a framework for customized tools.

The primary way to configure Toolbox is through the tools.yaml file. If you

have multiple files, you can tell Toolbox which to load with the `--config

tools.yaml` flag.

You can find more detailed reference documentation to all resource types in the

Resources.

Sources

The sources section of your tools.yaml defines what data sources your

Toolbox should have access to. Most tools will have at least one source to

execute against.

kind: source
name: my-pg-source
type: postgres
host: 127.0.0.1
port: 5432
database: toolbox_db
user: toolbox_user
password: my-password

For more details on configuring different types of sources, see the

Sources.

Tools

The tools section of a tools.yaml define the actions an agent can take: what

type of tool it is, which source(s) it affects, what parameters it uses, etc.

kind: tool
name: search-hotels-by-name
type: postgres-sql
source: my-pg-source
description: Search for hotels based on name.
parameters:
  - name: name
    type: string
    description: The name of the hotel.
statement: SELECT * FROM hotels WHERE name ILIKE '%' || $1 || '%';

For more details on configuring different types of tools, see the

Tools.

Toolsets

The toolsets section of your tools.yaml allows you to define groups of tools

that you want to be able to load together. This can be useful for defining

different groups based on agent or application.

kind: toolset
name: my_first_toolset
tools:
    - my_first_tool
    - my_second_tool
---
kind: toolset
name: my_second_toolset
tools:
    - my_second_tool
    - my_third_tool

Prompts

The prompts section of a tools.yaml defines prompts that can be used for

interactions with LLMs.

kind: prompt
name: code_review
description: "Asks the LLM to analyze code quality and suggest improvements."
messages:
  - content: >
         Please review the following code for quality, correctness,
         and potential improvements: \n\n{{.code}}
arguments:
  - name: "code"
    description: "The code to review"

For more details on configuring prompts, see the

Prompts.

---

Install & Run the Toolbox server

You can run Toolbox directly with a configuration file:

npx @toolbox-sdk/server --config tools.yaml

This runs the latest version of the Toolbox server with your configuration file.

[!NOTE]

This method is optimized for convenience rather than performance.

For a more standard and reliable installation, please use the binary

or container image as described in Install & Run the Toolbox server.

Install Toolbox

For the latest version, check the [releases page][releases] and use the

following instructions for your OS and CPU architecture.

[releases]: https://github.com/googleapis/mcp-toolbox/releases

<details open>

<summary>Binary</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary:

<!-- {x-release-please-start-version} -->

<details>

<summary>Linux (AMD64)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on Linux (AMD64):

```sh

# see releases page for other versions

export VERSION=1.8.0

curl -L -o toolbox https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v$VERSION/linux/amd64/toolbox

chmod +x toolbox

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>macOS (Apple Silicon)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on macOS (Apple Silicon):

```sh

# see releases page for other versions

export VERSION=1.8.0

curl -L -o toolbox https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v$VERSION/darwin/arm64/toolbox

chmod +x toolbox

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>macOS (Intel)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on macOS (Intel):

```sh

# see releases page for other versions

export VERSION=1.8.0

curl -L -o toolbox https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v$VERSION/darwin/amd64/toolbox

chmod +x toolbox

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>Windows (Command Prompt)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on Windows (Command Prompt):

```cmd

:: see releases page for other versions

set VERSION=1.8.0

curl -o toolbox.exe "https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v%VERSION%/windows/amd64/toolbox.exe"

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>Windows (PowerShell)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on Windows (PowerShell):

```powershell

# see releases page for other versions

$VERSION = "1.8.0"

curl.exe -o toolbox.exe "https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v$VERSION/windows/amd64/toolbox.exe"

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>Windows ARM64 (Command Prompt)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on Windows ARM64 (Command Prompt):

```cmd

:: see releases page for other versions

set VERSION=1.8.0

curl -o toolbox.exe "https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v%VERSION%/windows/arm64/toolbox.exe"

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>Windows ARM64 (PowerShell)</summary>

To install Toolbox as a binary on Windows ARM64 (PowerShell):

```powershell

# see releases page for other versions

$VERSION = "1.8.0"

curl.exe -o toolbox.exe "https://storage.googleapis.com/mcp-toolbox-for-databases/v$VERSION/windows/arm64/toolbox.exe"

```

</details>

</details>

<details>

<summary>Container image</summary>

You can also install Toolbox as a container:

# see releases page for other versions
export VERSION=1.8.0
docker pull us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/database-toolbox/toolbox/toolbox:$VERSION

</details>

<details>

<summary>Homebrew</summary>

To install Toolbox using Homebrew on macOS or Linux:

brew install mcp-toolbox

</details>

<details>

<summary>Compile from source</summary>

To install from source, ensure you have the latest version of

Go installed, and then run the following command:

go install github.com/googleapis/mcp-toolbox@v1.8.0

<!-- {x-release-please-end} -->

</details>

<details>

<summary>Gemini CLI</summary>

Check out the Gemini CLI extensions to install prebuilt tools for specific databases like AlloyDB, BigQuery, and Cloud SQL directly into Gemini CLI.

# Install Gemini CLI
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli
# Install the extension
gemini extensions install https://github.com/gemini-cli-extensions/cloud-sql-postgres
# Run Gemini CLI
gemini

Interact with your custom tools using natural language through the Gemini CLI.

# Install the extension
ge