Azure MCP Connection
The azure-mcp vendor runs Microsoft's official Azure MCP Server (mcr.microsoft.com/azure-sdk/azure-mcp) as a WYRE-built sidecar inside the MCP gateway. Each connecting MSP supplies its own Azure service principal; the gateway isolates credentials per tenant and scopes every request to the principal you registered.
Read-only deployment — read this first
The gateway runs the Azure MCP Server with the --read-only flag and a deliberately constrained namespace allowlist. Day-one the connector exposes exactly eight read-leaning namespaces:
monitor pricing quota advisor resourcehealth applens subscription group
Write- and delete-capable namespaces (storage, keyvault, compute, role, aks, and others) are not enabled. This is intentional defense-in-depth: even if a service principal were over-privileged, the gateway cannot route a mutating call. As shipped, azure-mcp is an Azure observability, cost, and resource-health tool — nothing it does changes infrastructure.
Because the deployment is read-only, the service principal you connect should also be read-only. Grant Reader-tier roles and nothing more.
Step 1 — Register an Azure service principal
In the Azure tenant you want to manage, create an Azure AD app registration with a client secret. Either the portal (Microsoft Entra ID → App registrations → New registration) or the CLI works:
az ad sp create-for-rbac \
--name "wyre-azure-mcp" \
--role "Reader" \
--scopes "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"
This emits three values you will need for the gateway:
tenant→ Tenant IDappId→ Service Principal Client IDpassword→ Service Principal Client Secret (shown once — capture it now)
If you reuse an existing app registration, generate a fresh client secret under Certificates & secrets and note its expiry — the connector stops working when the secret lapses.
Step 2 — Grant least-privilege RBAC
Assign Reader-tier roles only, at subscription scope (or management-group scope to cover several subscriptions). These two built-in roles cover all eight enabled namespaces:
| Role | Why it is needed | Covers |
|---|---|---|
Reader | Read-only visibility into resources, metrics, health, and inventory | monitor, resourcehealth, applens, advisor, subscription, group |
Cost Management Reader | Read access to cost, pricing, and usage data | pricing, quota, cost-focused advisor recommendations |
az role assignment create \
--assignee "<service-principal-client-id>" \
--role "Reader" \
--scope "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"
az role assignment create \
--assignee "<service-principal-client-id>" \
--role "Cost Management Reader" \
--scope "/subscriptions/<subscription-id>"
For Log Analytics KQL queries via the monitor namespace, Reader on the subscription is sufficient because it inherits to the workspace. If a workspace lives outside the granted scope, add Log Analytics Reader on that specific workspace — still a Reader-tier role.
Do not grant write roles
Contributor, Owner, User Access Administrator, Key Vault Secrets User, and similar write/secret roles are unnecessary and must not be granted. The connector cannot use them — the gateway runs --read-only and the write namespaces are not in the allowlist. Granting them only widens the blast radius of a leaked secret with zero functional benefit. Least privilege here is both a security control and a no-cost decision.
Step 3 — Connect in the WYRE gateway
In the gateway connection UI, choose the azure-mcp vendor and supply:
- Tenant ID — the directory the service principal lives in
- Service Principal Client ID — the app registration's
appId - Service Principal Client Secret — the secret from Step 1
The gateway authenticates the Azure MCP sidecar with these credentials and routes the eight enabled namespaces' tools into your session. No Azure credentials are stored client-side.
Verifying the connection
After connecting, confirm the connector is live with a harmless read:
- List subscriptions (
subscriptionnamespace) — confirms the service principal authenticated and has at least Reader visibility. - List resource groups (
groupnamespace) for one subscription — confirms scope is correct. - If either returns an empty result or an authorization error, the service principal lacks a role assignment at the expected scope, or the client secret has expired — re-check Step 2 and the secret's validity.
Troubleshooting
AuthorizationFailed/ empty subscription list — noReaderassignment at the subscription/management-group scope, or the assignment hasn't propagated yet (allow a few minutes).- Cost or pricing tools return nothing —
Cost Management Readeris missing. - Connector worked, then stopped — the client secret expired. Generate a new one and update the gateway connection.
- A user asks for a write/provision/delete operation — that is out of scope for this connector by design. Explain that
azure-mcpis a read-only deployment and the relevant namespace is not enabled; do not attempt a workaround.