Resources Overview¶

pcp-mcp provides three MCP resources for browsing PCP data without explicit tool calls.

What Are Resources?¶

MCP resources are read-only data sources that clients can browse or subscribe to. Unlike tools (which require explicit invocation), resources provide passive access to information.

Available Resources¶

Resource URI	Description
`pcp://health`	Quick system health summary
`pcp://metrics/common`	Catalog of commonly used metrics
`pcp://namespaces`	Live-discovered metric namespaces

When to Use Resources vs Tools¶

Use Case	Recommended
Quick health check (human-readable)	`pcp://health` resource
Detailed system analysis	`get_system_snapshot` tool
Learn what metrics exist	`pcp://metrics/common` resource
Explore live system capabilities	`pcp://namespaces` resource
Discover metrics by pattern	`search_metrics` tool
Fetch specific metric values	`query_metrics` tool

Resource Characteristics¶

Read-Only¶

Resources never modify system state. They provide a snapshot of information at the time of access.

Text Format¶

All resources return markdown-formatted text suitable for display in MCP clients or consumption by LLMs.

Live Data¶

The pcp://health and pcp://namespaces resources query the live PCP system. The pcp://metrics/common resource returns static documentation.

Example Workflow¶

Browse pcp://namespaces to see what's available on this system
Read pcp://metrics/common to understand common metric groups
Use search_metrics tool to find specific metrics
Query with get_system_snapshot or query_metrics for actual values

Accessing Resources¶

In Claude Desktop¶

Resources appear in the resources panel. Click to view content.

Programmatically¶

# Using FastMCP client
async with client.session() as session:
    health = await session.read_resource("pcp://health")
    print(health.contents[0].text)