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AI for app development

  • Concept
  • 8 minutes

Overview​

The App Development MCP (Model Context Protocol) server connects your AI assistant to the latest Dynatrace app development resources. Combined with custom instructions in the AGENTS.md file, your AI assistant receives additional context about your project structure, conventions, and development practices. With this integration, your AI assistant can:

  • Understand the Dynatrace platform architecture and patterns.
  • Build user interfaces with Strato design system building blocks, including Strato React components and design tokens.
  • Explore SDKs.
  • Build DQL queries.
  • Execute commands from the Dynatrace App Toolkit.
Note

Use the Dynatrace MCP server when you want your AI assistant to interact with a Dynatrace environment, for example, query and inspect telemetry like metrics, logs, and traces, or help with incident investigation and troubleshooting.

Prerequisites​

Before setting up AI assistance for app development:

  • Complete the "Before you begin" steps outlined in the Getting started documentation.
  • Install an AI development tool that supports MCP. We recommend GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio Code.

Setup instructions​

Step 1: Add the instructions file​

  • For new apps—the Dynatrace App Toolkit version 1.5 or higher automatically places the AGENTS.md instructions file in the root of your project.

  • For existing apps—copy the AGENTS.md instructions file into the root of your app project repository.

Step 2: Add the App Development MCP server​

  1. Open the Dynatrace Apps VS Code extension.
  2. Make sure the extension version is 0.32.0 or higher.
  3. In the extension settings, enable AI-assisted development features.
  4. Reload Visual Studio Code.

Activate App Development MCP server in Visual Studio Code

Step 3: Configure your AI tool​

GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code​

  • Open the Copilot chat window and select "Configure tools" to access AI tool settings. Configure tools in Copilot chat
  • Alternatively, you can open the MCP Server list by pressing ⌘⇧P (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux), then typing MCP: List Servers.

This allows you to manage and activate available dynatrace-apps tools for AI-assisted development directly within VS Code.

Step 4: Confirm that the dynatrace-apps MCP server is working correctly​

Test the setup by asking GitHub Copilot:

  • Which Strato component can I use to display a numeric return value of a DQL query?
  • How can I query all logs with ERROR status?

In the Copilot chat, you should see it invoke tools from the dynatrace-apps MCP server before providing its response.

Available tools​

The App Development MCP server exposes these tools:

  • strato_search—searches Strato components by name or keyword.
  • strato_get_component—gets Strato component docs (props, TypeScript types, examples, imports).
  • strato_get_usecase_details—gets code for Strato component example use cases.
  • dql_search—searches the DQL knowledge base for syntax, functions, examples, and best practices.
  • sdk_search—lists available Dynatrace SDK documentation packages.
  • sdk_get_doc—gets the full documentation for a Dynatrace SDK package (API reference, parameters, return types, examples).
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