Quickstart

Get Kravn running and serving its first MCP endpoint in a few minutes. For production installs (Helm, external databases, TLS, HA) see the Installation Manual.

Prerequisites

• Docker (for the quickest start), or Node 22+ and pnpm 9 (to run from source), or a Kubernetes cluster with Helm 3 (for a cluster install).
• Nothing else — Kravn ships with an embedded SQLite database and generates its own signing key on first boot.

1. Start Kravn

Docker

docker compose up            # → http://localhost:8080

Helm

helm install kravn ./charts/kravn
kubectl port-forward svc/kravn 8080:80
# → http://localhost:8080

From source

pnpm install
pnpm build                   # operator UI builds into the gateway
pnpm start                   # → http://localhost:8080

Open http://localhost:8080.

2. Complete the setup wizard

On first boot Kravn shows a one-time setup wizard. Create the first administrator account. That's it — you're in the operator console.

The signing key is auto-generated on first run. For production, pin it explicitly (KRAVN_SECRET) so tokens survive restarts and are shared across replicas — see Configuration.

3. Connect your first MCP Server

In the console, go to MCP Servers → Add, and point Kravn at an upstream MCP server:

• Transport — streamable-HTTP, SSE or stdio.
• URL / command — where the server lives.

Kravn connects and syncs its catalog — the tools, resources and prompts it advertises now appear under Tools, Resources and Prompts.

Prefer a corporate system? Enable a native integration instead (SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Confluence) from Plugins — configure its credentials and its tools appear in the catalog just the same. See Plugins & integrations.

4. Publish an MCP Endpoint

Raw upstreams aren't exposed directly — you publish a curated MCP Endpoint:

1. Go to MCP Endpoints → New.
2. Pick the tools/resources/prompts from the catalog it should expose.
3. Choose an access policy: public, authenticated, or restricted to specific teams.
4. (Optional) add a pipeline overlay — e.g. a Secrets Redactor or PII Tokenizer — on top of the global pipeline.

Your endpoint is now live at /servers/<slug>/mcp.

5. Connect a client

Point any MCP client at the endpoint URL:

https://<your-kravn-host>/servers/<slug>/mcp

For anything but a public endpoint the client authenticates via Kravn (OAuth), and access is decided by team membership — so a client only ever sees the tools its user's teams are entitled to.

What's next

• Installation Manual — Helm values, external databases, TLS/ingress, HA.
• Configuration — environment vs in-app settings, SSO, SCIM.
• Core concepts — servers vs endpoints, control vs data plane, pipelines.
• Security & compliance — the posture that makes Kravn safe inside a regulated network.