Nova Act MCP Server is deployed on AWS ECS Fargate and exposes an MCP endpoint that clients can interact with through the server's HTTP interface. After deployment, you can access the MCP endpoint at the provided ALB DNS name followed by /mcp, and you can load the client UI from the same domain on port 8501. The server uses the Nova Act API key for authentication and to access Nova Act resources. To begin, obtain or set your Nova Act API key and ensure it is available to the server via environment variables or Secrets Manager as configured by the deployment. Use the MCP endpoint to perform model-context operations and experiment with the client UI to inspect and manage models and contexts.

Typical usage scenarios include: querying, updating, or creating model contexts via MCP calls exposed by the server; exploring available MCP operations in client UI; and validating integration by sending requests against the /mcp endpoint and inspecting responses in the UI or logs.

Prerequisites:

• AWS credentials configured (AWS CLI)
• Node.js and npm installed
• AWS CDK installed (npm install -g aws-cdk)
• Docker installed (for building images if developing locally)
• Nova Act API key (or access to add one in AWS Secrets Manager)

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository: git clone <repository-url> cd <repository-directory>
2. Install dependencies: npm install
3. Set your Nova Act API key (optional at this stage): export NOVA_ACT_API_KEY=your-api-key

   If not set, you may need to configure Secrets Manager later via AWS Console or CDK code

4. Bootstrap and deploy the CDK stack: cdk bootstrap cdk deploy

Post-deploy: Note the generated outputs, including the MCP Server endpoint (ALB DNS /mcp) and the Client UI URL (port 8501). If you did not set the API key in environment, add it to AWS Secrets Manager as required by the CDK stack.

Tips and common notes:

• The NOVA_ACT_API_KEY is required for authenticating with Nova Act. Ensure this secret is accessible to the ECS task (via environment variable or Secrets Manager as configured).
• If you run into connectivity issues, verify the ECS service has proper security group rules to allow inbound traffic from the ALB and outbound access as needed.
• The Client UI operates on port 8501 by default; ensure security groups allow access if you intend to reach it from outside the VPC.
• For troubleshooting, check CloudWatch logs for the ECS task to determine startup issues, missing environment variables, or misconfigurations.
• If you need to redeploy after config changes, use cdk deploy again; avoid cdk destroy unless you intend to tear down the entire stack.