Actionable rules for automating, securing, and standardizing configuration management in MCP (Master Control Panel) environments using Infrastructure-as-Code, Ansible, and supporting DevOps tooling.
You know the drill. Production breaks at 2 AM because someone manually tweaked a config "just this once." Your team spends more time hunting down environment inconsistencies than shipping features. Your infrastructure snowflakes across dev, staging, and production because manual changes accumulate like technical debt.
MCP environments are notorious for configuration drift. Traditional approaches fail because:
Every manual configuration change is a potential outage waiting to happen.
These Cursor Rules transform your MCP environment management from reactive firefighting to proactive automation. Instead of manually configuring servers and hoping for consistency, you'll codify everything in Terraform, automate deployments with Ansible, and maintain single-source-of-truth configurations that scale.
What you get:
# SSH into each server individually
ssh prod-mcp-01
vi /etc/mcp/config.yaml # Hope you remember the syntax
systemctl restart mcp # Cross fingers
# Repeat for 20+ servers, hope nothing breaks
# terraform/main.tf - Provision entire MCP cluster
module "mcp_cluster" {
source = "./modules/mcp"
environment = var.environment
instance_count = var.mcp_instance_count
# Automatically configure load balancing, monitoring, backups
enable_monitoring = true
backup_retention = 30
}
# ansible/mcp-deploy.yml - Configure all services consistently
- hosts: mcp_servers
vars:
mcp_config: "{{ lookup('file', 'configs/{{ environment }}/mcp.yaml') }}"
tasks:
- name: Deploy MCP configuration
template:
src: mcp.conf.j2
dest: /etc/mcp/config.yaml
notify: restart mcp
Before: 2 hours manually configuring new MCP environments, 30 minutes per hotfix After: 15 minutes to spin up new environments, 5 minutes for configuration changes
Deploy the same Terraform plan across dev/staging/production. Your environments stay identical, and debugging becomes predictable.
# Pull secrets from AWS Secrets Manager, never hardcode
data "aws_secretsmanager_secret_version" "mcp_api_key" {
secret_id = "mcp/${var.environment}/api-key"
}
resource "aws_instance" "mcp_server" {
user_data = templatefile("${path.module}/user-data.sh", {
api_key = data.aws_secretsmanager_secret_version.mcp_api_key.secret_string
})
}
# Ansible validates before applying changes
- name: Validate MCP configuration syntax
command: mcp validate --config {{ mcp_config_path }}
register: config_validation
- name: Abort on configuration errors
fail:
msg: "Invalid MCP configuration: {{ config_validation.stderr }}"
when: config_validation.rc != 0
mcp-infrastructure/
├── terraform/
│ ├── environments/
│ │ ├── dev/
│ │ ├── staging/
│ │ └── production/
│ └── modules/mcp/
├── ansible/
│ ├── inventories/
│ ├── playbooks/
│ └── roles/mcp/
└── configs/
├── dev/
├── staging/
└── production/
Copy the MCP Configuration Management Ruleset into your .cursor/rules directory. These rules will:
.mcp configuration files correctly# Initialize Terraform with remote state
cd terraform/environments/dev
terraform init
terraform plan -var="environment=dev"
terraform apply
# Deploy configurations with Ansible
cd ../../../ansible
ansible-playbook -i inventories/dev/hosts.yml playbooks/mcp-deploy.yml
# .github/workflows/mcp-deploy.yml
name: MCP Configuration Deploy
on:
push:
paths: ['terraform/**', 'ansible/**', 'configs/**']
jobs:
validate:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Terraform Validate
run: terraform validate
- name: Ansible Lint
run: ansible-lint playbooks/
- name: MCP Config Validation
run: mcp lint configs/
Stop accepting configuration chaos as inevitable. These Cursor Rules give you the automation patterns that platform teams at major tech companies use to manage thousands of servers consistently.
Every manual configuration change you make today is technical debt. Every hardcoded secret is a potential breach. Every environment inconsistency is a future outage.
Transform your MCP environments from manual liability to automated asset. Your infrastructure can be as reliable and predictable as your application code – you just need the right patterns.
Ready to eliminate configuration drift forever? Implement these rules and watch your team's productivity soar while your infrastructure becomes bulletproof.
You are an expert in MCP, Terraform (HCL), Ansible, Bash, YAML/JSON, and Cloud-native services.
Key Principles
- Codify everything: infrastructure, network, and application configs live in version control.
- Idempotency first: rerunning a playbook/plan must yield no side effects when state is unchanged.
- Least privilege & MFA: every script, role, and user must request only the permissions it needs.
- Environment agnosticism: use variables and workspaces; avoid hard-coding. One codebase, many environments.
- Fail fast: validate, lint, and test before apply. Abort on first error.
- Immutable infrastructure: replace rather than patch long-running pets.
- Single source of truth: store configuration data in a CMDB that is automatically updated by pipelines.
Terraform (HCL)
- Always start with `terraform fmt` and `terraform validate` in CI.
- File layout:
main.tf – resources
variables.tf – typed variables with descriptions
outputs.tf – outputs consumed by other stacks
providers.tf – provider lock (~> version)
modules/ – reusable, versioned modules
- Use remote state (e.g., S3 + DynamoDB lock) per environment; encrypt state at rest.
- Require explicit `lifecycle { prevent_destroy = true }` on critical resources.
- Use `terragrunt` or workspaces to separate dev/stage/prod; prefix resources with var.environment.
- Never embed secrets; reference secrets manager data sources.
- Example – dynamic environment variables:
```hcl
variable "environment" {
type = string
validation {
condition = can(regex("^(dev|stage|prod)$", var.environment))
error_message = "Environment must be dev|stage|prod." }
}
```
YAML / JSON
- Store declarative service configs in `env/<stage>/values.yaml`.
- Use JSON for client-side configs; enforce schema with `ajv` or `jsonschema`.
- Keys: kebab-case; secrets: reference `${{ vault.key }}` tokens.
Bash / Startup Scripts
- Accept `--env=$ENV` CLI arg; default to `DEV`. Exit if undefined.
- Export only whitelisted variables; `set -euo pipefail` at top of every script.
Error Handling & Validation
- Terraform: run `terraform plan -detailed-exitcode`; exit non-zero on drift.
- Ansible: `any_errors_fatal: true` in playbooks; capture failed hosts list.
- MCP Config Manager: enable drift detection and webhook alerts; remediation script must tag incidents in CMDB.
- Early return pattern:
```yaml
- name: Abort if baseline compliance fails
ansible.builtin.fail:
msg: "Baseline non-compliant"
when: baseline_check.rc != 0
```
Ansible Framework Rules
- Structure: roles/ → tasks/ handlers/ templates/ defaults/ vars/ meta/
- Use collections; pin versions in `requirements.yml`.
- Declare inventories in `/inventories/<env>/hosts.ini`; no IPs in playbooks.
- Employ `block` + `rescue` for transactional changes.
- Idempotency test: `ansible-playbook --check --diff` must show no changes on second run.
MCP Specific (.mcp files)
- Name pattern: `<service>-<env>.mcp` (e.g., api-prod.mcp).
- Required top-level keys: version, component, config, secretsRef.
- Validate with `mcp lint` in CI; block merge on warning severity ≥ medium.
- Store rendered configs in S3 `mcp-artifacts/<commit_sha>/` for audit.
Additional Sections
Testing
- Unit test modules with `terratest`; require 90% coverage.
- Spin ephemeral environments via `terraform apply -auto-approve` in PR preview, destroy on merge.
- Use Ansible Molecule for role testing; include security scans.
Performance & Scalability
- Enable auto-scaling groups with predictive scaling.
- Tag resources with `owner`, `cost_center`, and `environment` for FinOps.
Security
- Encrypt in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (KMS, SSE-KMS).
- Enforce IAM least privilege via policy linting (policy_sentry or Checkov).
- Secrets: store in AWS Secrets Manager or HashiCorp Vault; inject at runtime.
CI/CD Integration
- Pipeline stages: lint → test → validate → plan (manual approval) → apply → smoke tests.
- Use OPA/Sentinel policy checks before apply.
Documentation & CMDB
- Auto-generate docs with `terraform-docs markdown table .` → README.md.
- Every pipeline updates CMDB via REST API with output revisions.
Common Pitfalls & Fixes
- Hard-coded ARNs/IDs → Replace with data sources.
- State lock contention → Implement backoff + notify lock holder.
- Missing version pins → Pin providers and modules; automatic updates via `renovate`.