How To Set Up MCP-Travis: Control Travis CI with Claude

Imagine being able to trigger CI/CD builds, check build statuses, and restart failed jobs just by chatting with Claude. That's exactly what mcp-travis enables. This MCP server connects Travis CI directly to Claude Desktop, letting you manage your continuous integration workflow through natural language.

In this guide, I'll show you how to set up mcp-travis and start controlling Travis CI from your AI assistant.

What is MCP-Travis?

MCP-Travis is a Model Context Protocol server that exposes Travis CI as tools and resources to AI assistants. Built by Montana (Michael Mendy), it uses the Travis CI API v3 to give Claude Desktop powerful capabilities for managing your CI/CD pipelines. The server acts as a bridge between Claude's conversational interface and Travis CI's powerful automation platform, bringing together the best of both worlds.

What Can You Do With MCP-Travis?

Once configured, mcp-travis unlocks a range of capabilities that transform how you interact with your CI/CD pipeline. You can trigger builds for any repository and branch, with the ability to add optional configuration overrides on the fly. When builds fail, you don't need to navigate to the Travis CI web interface—simply ask Claude to restart the build using its ID. Similarly, if a build is taking too long or you realize you need to make changes, canceling running builds becomes as simple as asking Claude to do it.

Beyond triggering and managing builds, mcp-travis gives you insight into your CI/CD activity. You can view recent builds for your repositories to get a quick status overview, check environment variables that are configured for specific repositories, and fetch detailed build logs for specific jobs when you need to debug issues. All of this happens right inside Claude Desktop through natural conversation, eliminating the constant context switching that typically slows down development workflows.

Prerequisites

Before setting up mcp-travis, you'll need to ensure you have a few essential components in place. First and foremost, you'll need Node.js version 18 or higher installed on your system, as mcp-travis is built on Node.js. You'll also need an active Travis CI account with API access enabled, which is necessary for the server to communicate with Travis CI's services. Of course, you'll need Claude Desktop or another MCP-compatible client installed—this is where you'll interact with your Travis CI workflows. Finally, you'll need a Travis CI API token, which we'll walk through obtaining in the next step. This token is what authenticates mcp-travis with your Travis CI account and grants it permission to perform actions on your behalf.

Step 1: Get Your Travis CI API Token

The first step in setting up mcp-travis is generating an API token from Travis CI. This token serves as the authentication mechanism that allows the MCP server to interact with your Travis CI account securely. To get your token, navigate to Travis CI at travis-ci.com and log into your account. Once logged in, head to your account settings, which you'll find in the navigation menu. Within the settings area, look for the API authentication section where Travis CI manages access tokens.

If you already have an existing token that you'd like to use, you can simply copy it from this section. Otherwise, generate a new token specifically for mcp-travis. It's important to save this token securely—you'll need it when configuring the environment variables in a later step. Make absolutely sure that your token has API access permissions enabled, as this is required for the MCP server to function properly. Without these permissions, the server won't be able to trigger builds, check statuses, or perform any of the other powerful actions that make mcp-travis so useful.

Step 2: Clone and Install MCP-Travis

Open your terminal and clone the repository:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Montana/mcp-travis.git
cd mcp-travis

# Install dependencies
npm install

Step 3: Configure Environment Variables

Create your environment configuration file:

# Copy the example environment file
cp .env.example .env

Now edit the .env file with your details:

# Travis CI API endpoint
TRAVIS_API_URL=https://api.travis-ci.com

TRAVIS_API_TOKEN=your_token_here

TRAVIS_USER_AGENT=mcp-travis/0.1

Configuration details:

Step 4: Build the Server

Build the project to create the production-ready binary:

# Build the server
npm run build

This creates optimized output in the dist directory.

Step 5: Configure Claude Desktop

Now you need to tell Claude Desktop about your new MCP server. Edit the Claude configuration file:

Configuration file location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add mcp-travis to your configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-travis": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/absolute/path/to/mcp-travis/dist/index.js"
      ],
      "env": {
        "TRAVIS_API_URL": "https://api.travis-ci.com",
        "TRAVIS_API_TOKEN": "your_token_here",
        "TRAVIS_USER_AGENT": "mcp-travis/0.1"
      }
    }
  }
}

When adding this configuration, there are a few critical details to get right. Make sure to replace "/absolute/path/to/mcp-travis" with the actual full path where you cloned the repository. On Windows, you'll need to use either forward slashes or double backslashes in the path rather than single backslashes. You can find your absolute path by running "pwd" on macOS or Linux, or "cd" on Windows. Most importantly, replace "yourtokenhere" with your actual Travis CI API token that you generated earlier.

Step 6: Restart Claude Desktop

For the changes to take effect, you need to completely quit Claude Desktop—not just close the window, but actually quit the application entirely. Once you've done this, relaunch Claude Desktop and look for the tools icon that should now appear in the interface. This icon confirms that MCP-Travis has been loaded successfully. You should also verify in the MCP settings that mcp-travis is showing as activated.

Development Mode

If you want to develop or modify mcp-travis, use development mode:

# Run in development mode with auto-reload
npm run dev

This starts the server with hot-reload capabilities for faster development.

Using MCP-Travis

Once configured, you can interact with Travis CI through natural language in Claude Desktop!

Available Resources

MCP-Travis provides several resources you can query:

Available Tools

MCP-Travis exposes three powerful tools:

What Makes MCP-Travis Powerful

The real power of mcp-travis comes from integrating CI/CD into your natural workflow. Instead of switching contexts between Claude, your code editor, and Travis CI's web interface, you can:

• Ask Claude about build statuses while discussing code changes
• Trigger builds immediately when you're ready to test
• Restart failed builds without leaving your conversation
• Review build logs to debug issues with Claude's help

This seamless integration means CI/CD becomes part of your natural development conversation, not a separate tool you have to context-switch to.

Real-World Usage Examples

Here are some practical scenarios where mcp-travis shines:

Scenario 1: Code Review with Integrated Testing

You're reviewing code with Claude and want to test changes:

You: "I've made changes to the authentication module. Can you trigger a build on the auth-updates branch?"

Claude: Uses travis.triggerBuild tool

"Build triggered successfully! Build #456 is now running for Montana/your-repo on the auth-updates branch."

Scenario 2: Debugging Failed Builds

A build failed and you need to investigate:

You: "My latest build failed. Can you show me the build log for job 789123?"

Claude: Uses travis:build-log resource

"Here's the build log. It looks like the tests are failing due to a missing environment variable..."

Scenario 3: Quick Build Management

You need to restart a flaky test that failed:

You: "That test failure was a fluke. Restart build 12345."

Claude: Uses travis.restartBuild tool

"Build #12345 has been restarted successfully. I'll monitor it for you."

Security Best Practices

When using mcp-travis, it's essential to think carefully about security since you're granting programmatic access to your CI/CD infrastructure. Your API token is the key to your Travis CI account, so protecting it should be your top priority. Never commit your .env file to version control, and be cautious about where you store or share your token. If your token is compromised, someone could potentially trigger builds, access logs, or manipulate your CI/CD pipeline.

Rather than using a token with broad permissions, create tokens with only the specific permissions required for the tasks you need to perform. Travis CI allows you to scope tokens appropriately, so take advantage of this feature to minimize potential damage if a token is ever exposed. It's also wise to rotate your tokens regularly—generate new API tokens periodically and update your mcp-travis configuration accordingly. This practice limits the window of opportunity if a token is somehow compromised without your knowledge.

Claude will ask for your approval before triggering builds or performing other actions, which provides an important safety layer. Pay attention to these requests and review what Claude is about to do before approving. Finally, even with all these precautions in place, regularly monitor your Travis CI dashboard for unexpected activity. If you notice builds being triggered at odd times or from unexpected sources, it could indicate that your token has been compromised and needs immediate rotation.

Advanced Configuration

Using Travis CI Enterprise

If your organization uses Travis CI Enterprise rather than the public travis-ci.com service, you'll need to adjust your configuration to point to your company's Travis CI installation. The key difference is the TRAVISAPIURL environment variable, which should be set to your enterprise instance's API endpoint rather than the default public API. This typically looks like something like "https://travis.your-company.com/api", though the exact URL will depend on how your organization has deployed Travis CI Enterprise. Everything else in the setup process remains the same—only the API endpoint changes.

Custom User Agent

The user agent string identifies your MCP server when it makes requests to the Travis CI API. While the default value works perfectly fine, you might want to customize it for tracking or organizational purposes. For example, if you're setting up mcp-travis for your team, you could set TRAVISUSERAGENT to something like "mcp-travis/0.1-my-team" to make it easier to identify these requests in logs or monitoring systems. This becomes particularly useful if you have multiple instances of mcp-travis running across different teams or environments.

Multiple Repositories

One of the strengths of mcp-travis is that it isn't limited to a single repository. Your API token has access to all the repositories your Travis CI account can access, and mcp-travis leverages this to let you manage multiple repositories seamlessly within a single conversation. You can ask Claude to show recent builds for one repository, trigger a build for another, and check logs for a third, all without switching contexts or reconfiguring anything. This makes mcp-travis particularly powerful for developers and teams who work across multiple projects simultaneously.

Extending MCP-Travis

Because mcp-travis is open source, you have the freedom to extend it with additional capabilities that suit your specific needs. The server's architecture makes it relatively straightforward to add new tools or resources that interact with Travis CI's API. For example, you could add support for the Travis CI branches API to get more detailed information about specific branches, or implement build statistics and analytics tools that help you understand trends in your CI/CD pipeline over time.

Tips for Maximum Productivity

To get the most out of mcp-travis, consider how it fits into your broader development workflow. The real power multiplier comes from combining mcp-travis with other MCP servers. When you have filesystem access, git integration, and Travis CI all connected to Claude simultaneously, you create a comprehensive development environment where Claude can understand your code, track changes, and manage your CI/CD pipeline all in one conversation. This integration eliminates the friction that typically exists between these different aspects of software development.

You can also leverage Claude's memory and conversation context to create build templates. If you frequently trigger builds with similar configurations, ask Claude to remember your common patterns. This way, future build triggers become even simpler—Claude already knows what you typically need. For long-running tasks like extensive test suites or deployment processes, use mcp-travis to monitor builds conversationally. You can work on other things and periodically ask Claude to check on the build status, rather than keeping a browser tab open or running watch commands in your terminal.

The integration becomes particularly powerful for deployment workflows. If you use Travis CI for deployments, mcp-travis lets you trigger production builds with the same natural language interface, while Claude can help you verify that everything is ready for deployment by checking recent commits, test results, and other contextual information. When builds fail, instead of just reading error logs, you can share them with Claude and ask for analysis and potential solutions, leveraging Claude's understanding of both your codebase and common CI/CD issues.

What's Next?

Now that you have mcp-travis set up and running, a whole ecosystem of possibilities opens up. The Model Context Protocol has a growing library of servers that can extend Claude's capabilities in different directions. You might explore servers for database access, cloud platform integration, or project management tools—each one adding another dimension to what you can accomplish in conversation with Claude. If you have unique needs that aren't met by existing servers, the MCP SDK makes it relatively straightforward to build your own custom servers for your specific tools and workflows.

The MCP community is active and welcoming, with developers sharing their experiences, troubleshooting challenges together, and building new servers to address emerging needs. Joining this community through forums, GitHub discussions, or social media can provide valuable insights into how others are using MCP and what advanced techniques they've discovered. And of course, mcp-travis itself is open source and actively developed, so if you encounter issues or have ideas for improvements, contributing to the project on GitHub helps everyone who uses it.

Conclusion

MCP-Travis represents a fundamental shift in how we can interact with CI/CD infrastructure. By bringing Travis CI directly into your AI-assisted development workflow, it transforms continuous integration from something that happens "over there" in a separate tool into something that's genuinely continuous—part of your natural conversation with Claude rather than a system you have to explicitly manage. This isn't just about convenience, though that's certainly a benefit. It's about maintaining focus and context, two of the most precious resources in software development.

The setup process takes just a few minutes: clone the repository, configure your API token, add the configuration to Claude, and restart. But the productivity gains compound over time in ways that are hard to quantify until you experience them. Every build you trigger without switching to a browser, every log you review without leaving your conversation, every failed build you restart with a simple request—these small moments add up. You spend less mental energy on tool-switching and more on the actual problems you're trying to solve.

What makes mcp-travis particularly powerful is how it exemplifies the broader potential of the Model Context Protocol. This isn't just about Travis CI—it's a demonstration of how we can connect AI assistants to the entire landscape of development tools and services. As more tools adopt MCP or as more MCP servers are built, we move toward a future where developers can work in a more natural, conversational way without sacrificing access to powerful automation and tooling. MCP-travis is your entry point into this new way of working.

Ready to get started? Clone the repository, configure your token, and start controlling Travis CI through conversation. The future of development tools is conversational, contextual, and connected—and with mcp-travis, that future is available today.