
GuniWeb SAP MCP
io.github.guniwebPublished by GitHub account guniwebv0.10.0Updated Oct 24, 2026
SAP S/4HANA and ECC: OData V2/V4, IDoc and RFC/BAPI for n8n and other MCP clients
Overview
Local MCP server that connects an assistant to SAP S/4HANA or ECC, letting it discover OData services and read, query, create, update or delete business data.
- What you can do
- Discover OData services and inspect entity sets, properties and allowed operations, with stage-by-stage connection diagnosis and natural-language-to-OData query building. Read and query entities with filters, selection, expansion and paging. Create, update and delete entities, including deep inserts, function imports, V4 actions and batch requests. Send and track IDocs over HTTP/XML, and call RFC/BAPI function modules when the SAP NW RFC SDK is installed. Enable or disable tool tiers at runtime.
- When to use it
- Useful when an assistant or workflow (for example n8n) needs to work with SAP business data such as business partners, sales orders or products through OData, IDoc or RFC, or when you want to try SAP tooling against a built-in mock system first.
- Requirements
- Runs locally via npx or Docker (stdio or HTTP transport). Needs SAP_BASE_URL and an authentication type; basic auth uses SAP_USERNAME and SAP_PASSWORD, and SAP_CLIENT is required for client-dependent gateways. Network access to the SAP system; RFC tools additionally need the SAP NW RFC SDK installed on the host. A demo mode runs without any SAP system.
Installation
In SourceWeft
- Open GuniWeb SAP MCP in the dashboard and add it to a workspace.
- Enable the server for the chats that should use its tools.
Desktop only via STDIO. STDIO servers start a local process, so they need the SourceWeft desktop host.
Other MCP clients
Follow the launch instructions in the repository.
README
GuniWeb SAP S/4HANA & ECC MCP Server
Designed for n8n, usable from any MCP host. Free to use — built and maintained by GuniWeb.
Connect n8n workflows to SAP S/4HANA and ECC via OData V2, V4, IDocs, and RFC/BAPI using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Made for AI-assisted, human-governed workflows: the workflow author decides which SAP APIs are called and in what order; the LLM extracts, maps and fills in parameters. Writes are off by default and switched on explicitly, per server and per token.
Features
OData & IDoc
- OData V2 + V4 CRUD -- Read, query, create, update, delete with auto version detection
- Deep Insert -- Create parent + child entities in one request
- Function Imports (V2) & Actions/Functions (V4) -- Trigger SAP business logic
- Batch Operations -- Multiple operations in a single
$batchrequest - NL-to-OData Query -- Natural language queries converted to structured OData filters
- IDoc Send & Receive -- HTTP/XML based, no RFC dependency
Discovery & Intelligence
- Service Discovery -- Auto-discover OData services with 16 business domain categories
- Progressive Metadata -- Service catalog -> entity sets -> properties -> query
- Smart Query Routing -- Domain-based routing resources for LLM tool selection
- Decision-Tree Tool Descriptions -- "When to use / When NOT to use" blocks guide LLMs
Governed tool visibility
- 4-Tier Tool Registry -- Core / OData / IDoc / RFC tiers with on-demand activation
sap_enable_tools-- LLMs activate additional tool tiers at runtime, within the limits you set- Read-only by default (since 0.2.2) -- write tools require
--allow-write - Per-token policy (0.3.0) --
readOnlyand tool-tier ceilings per Bearer token, only ever more restrictive - IDoc / RFC auto-disable -- tools hidden when the corresponding configuration is missing
- MCP Annotations -- readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint on all 22 tools
Authentication (8 Types)
Infrastructure
- Two Transport Modes -- stdio and Streamable HTTP (the legacy SSE transport was removed in 0.8.0)
- Named destinations (0.3.0) -- one server, several SAP systems; a Bearer token per n8n credential selects the system and its permissions. Static API key still supported
- Docker Ready -- Docker Compose for n8n + SAP MCP sidecar
- Zero telemetry -- the server talks to the SAP/BTP endpoints you configure and to nothing else. No usage statistics, no update checks, no crash reports
- 1267 Tests -- Unit, integration, E2E with CI/CD via GitHub Actions
Quick Start
Try it without an SAP system: --demo
No SAP system at hand? Start the server against a built-in mock S/4HANA and try every tool from n8n or any MCP client:
The demo starts an in-memory OData V2 gateway on localhost (three services with real SAP field names — API_BUSINESS_PARTNER, API_SALES_ORDER_SRV, API_PRODUCT_SRV; ~20 business partners, 15 sales orders with items, 10 products) and points the server at it. It behaves like a Gateway where it matters: catalog discovery, $metadata, $filter/$expand/paging, CSRF tokens, ETags, deep insert, function imports, $batch with changesets, SAP-style error payloads. Sample data only — nothing is real, nothing leaves your machine, and changes are gone when the process ends. Also SAP_MCP_DEMO=true (e.g. in Docker). A workflow you build against the demo runs against a real system after you replace --demo with your SAP_* configuration.
1. Install
Or run it as a container: docker run --rm -p 8808:8808 -e SAP_MCP_DEMO=true ghcr.io/guniweb/guniweb-sap-mcp:latest
2. Configure
3. Run
Run as a container
The image is built from the published npm package, not from a second build path — what runs in the container is the artifact you would have installed with npm install, so the two cannot drift apart. HTTP transport on port 8808 is the default inside the image (SAP_MCP_TRANSPORT / SAP_MCP_PORT); it runs as a non-root user, answers a health check on /healthz, and is published for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 with build provenance.
Not included: RFC/BAPI. That path needs the SAP NW RFC SDK, which SAP licenses to customers only and which therefore cannot ship in a public image. Everything else — OData V2/V4, IDoc over HTTP/XML — works. For RFC, install the SDK on the host and run the server from npm (Setup for SAP ECC).
A docker-compose.yml that puts n8n next to the server is in the repository.
Production hardening
In HTTP transport mode the /idoc route is mounted on the MCP port: with --webhook-secret it authenticates independently of --api-key (so SAP's Basic auth works while n8n uses the Bearer key); without it, it falls under --api-key if set — and is open if neither is configured (the server logs a warning at startup).
Both timeouts must stay below the smallest client limit in your setup. Typical limits: a reverse proxy such as Cloudflare aborts at 100 s (524), n8n's MCP client transport at 300 s. A budget above the smallest limit never takes effect, because the client gives up first.
Tracing a slow tool call
Every tool call logs one line on completion, carrying a correlation id that also appears on each SAP request it triggered:
grep a3f19c8b2d04 then shows the full story of that one call — including how many SAP requests it produced. outcome is one of ok, error, timeout (budget expired) or aborted (client disconnected).
Send a W3C traceparent header with the request, and its trace id appears in the same line as traceId, so a job can be followed from the calling application through n8n to the SAP request. The header is only logged. An invalid one is ignored, and it is never forwarded to SAP (details).
level: 50 means something is actually wrong. Expected non-2xx responses — the 404s from the catalog path probing and from the V4 catalog attempt on systems that have none — are logged at info with "expected": true, not at error. Measured on a production system: over 96 hours of runtime that false alarm was the only error-level entry in the log. Alerting on level: 50 is therefore meaningful; before, it produced nothing but noise.
When something breaks
test-connection walks the whole chain and reports the first failing stage — DNS, TLS (including the certificate chain), authentication, client (Mandant), catalog. Stages after the failure are reported as skipped, never as passed. The same five stages are logged once at startup, so the container log shows the state of the connection without calling anything.
Every error response carries a classification, the SAP error code where one exists, a plain-language message and the next action — no tool answers with "Unknown error". Three cases that used to cost a separate diagnosis each:
If SAP_TLS_VERIFY=false is in effect, every tool result carries a warning about it — not just the startup log. A disabled check that nobody sees after the first day tends to stay for years; on the production system that prompted this work it was set, and nobody noticed.
Streamable HTTP is stateless
--transport http serves MCP in stateless mode: every request is self-contained and the server neither issues nor expects an mcp-session-id header. There is no server-side session to resume, so a client may reconnect at any time without losing state.
Clients that require a session id — they read mcp-session-id from the initialize response and send it back on subsequent requests — will fail against this server. The n8n MCP Client, Claude Desktop, and the MCP Inspector all work without it.
The legacy --transport sse mode was removed in 0.8.0; use http.
Several SAP systems: destinations.json
The SAP_* variables describe one SAP system. To run one server against several — a production system next to a test client, or several customers' systems behind one n8n — put the connections into a destinations.json and point the server at it:
- One entry = one connection. Every entry accepts exactly the fields the
SAP_*variables accept (authTypeand its credentials,sapClient,baseUrl) — all authentication types work per destination. - Personal SAP login per request —
"authType": "user-basic": the destination knows system and client only; SAP user and password come with each request (X-SAP-Username/X-SAP-Password, in n8n the credential of the GuniWeb SAP node). Everyone acts in SAP as themselves — authorizations, change documents and audit trail on the real user, no shared technical account. No fallback to a technical user (401without a login), caches per user, passwords never logged. HTTP transport only. Details in the setup guide. - Secrets stay out of the file. Any string may contain
${VARIABLE}; it is resolved from the environment at load time (Docker secrets,.env). A placeholder that cannot be resolved makes the file invalid — an empty password would otherwise surface as a misleading401from SAP. - Hot reload. The file is watched; a change is picked up on the next request, no restart.
kill -HUP <pid>forces a reload. An invalid file never replaces the running configuration — the error is logged and the last valid one stays in force. - Backwards compatible. Without
--destinationsnothing changes: theSAP_*variables are the single destinationdefault. With the file,SAP_*(if set) is added asdefaultunless the file defines one — so an installation can migrate without a gap. - Which destination answers? Without a token: the one named
default(or the only one). With a token: the token's destination — see below.
Tokens: one Bearer value per n8n credential selects the system. The n8n MCP Client sends exactly one Authorization header, so a token does two jobs at once — it authenticates the request and picks the destination. SAP passwords never leave the server; n8n only holds the token.
- The file holds only the SHA-256 hash; the plain token (
gsm_<destination>_<random>) is printed once bytokens issueand cannot be recovered afterwards. Put it into an n8n Bearer Auth credential on the MCP Client node. As soon as at least one token exists, requests without a valid token get401—--api-keykeeps working alongside and serves thedefaultdestination. - Lookup is constant-time over all entries;
"revoked": truedisables a token on the next request (hot reload, no restart). After 10 failed attempts within a minute the client address gets429withRetry-After— also for a valid token — as a brake on guessing (a reverse proxy with a real rate limit is still the right place for that). Tokens are never written to the log; rejections are logged with address and reason. Managing the file — no hand-editing needed. The same binary carries the admin commands; every command validates the result exactly like the server does before writing (never leaves an unloadable file), writes atomically, and a running server picks the change up on the next request:
--set field=value covers any auth type (--auth-type oauth2 --set clientId=… --set clientSecret='${BTP_SECRET}' --set tokenServiceUrl=…); ${ENV_VAR} values are checked against the current environment (--allow-missing-env to skip, e.g. when the variable only exists inside the container). In Docker, run the commands inside the container so they see the same file and environment: docker compose exec sap-mcp guniweb-sap-mcp tokens issue s4prod.
-
Per-token permissions —
"policy": { "readOnly": true, "tiers": ["core", "odata"] }. A policy only ever restricts:readOnly: truehides the write tools for that token even when the server runs with--allow-write(readOnly: falsecannot open a read-only server), andtiersis a ceiling — tiers outside it are invisible for that token andsap_enable_toolscannot switch them on.tools/listis filtered per request, so an agent on a read-only token never seessap_createin the first place. -
Rate limits per token and per destination — for AI agents that call in a loop, and to stay below the quotas of the SAP API.
"rateLimit": { "requestsPerMinute": 60, "maxConcurrent": 4 }in a token'spolicylimits that token; the same object on a destination limits all callers of that SAP system together. Only tool calls count (tools/liststays free); above the limit the server answers429withRetry-Afterand a hint naming the limit. WhenmaxConcurrentis reached, a call first waits in a FIFO queue for a free slot, up to--rate-limit-max-waitseconds (default 60,0= answer429at once); a caller that disconnects while waiting leaves the queue.requestsPerMinutenever waits. No limit is configured by default. HTTP transport only. Set it without hand-editing:guniweb-sap-mcp tokens limit "n8n agent" --rate-per-minute 60,guniweb-sap-mcp destinations limit s4prod --max-concurrent 4(--clearremoves it), or--rate-per-minute/--max-concurrentontokens issue.
Admin API — the same operations over HTTP (self-service). With --admin-token <secret> (or SAP_MCP_ADMIN_TOKEN, at least 16 characters, e.g. openssl rand -base64 32) the server exposes the CLI's operations under /admin — for an n8n workflow that provisions a new customer's access, a script, or a person with curl, without a shell on the host:
- Separate keys, separate doors. The admin secret opens only
/admin; the n8n tokens and--api-keyopen only/mcp. A leaked n8n token cannot mint further access, an admin secret cannot read SAP data. Wrong secrets are counted per client address (429after 10 failures per minute); every change is logged with action, target and client address — never the token, never the secret. Without--admin-token,/admin/*answers404. - Effective immediately. Every write validates like the CLI, writes atomically and reloads the running configuration before answering (
"reloaded": true). If the server cannot load what was written — typically a${VAR}that only your shell knows, written with?allowMissingEnv=true— the answer says"reloaded": falsewith the errors, and the last valid configuration stays in force. - Bootstrap without any SAP configuration. With
--admin-tokenthe server starts even ifdestinations.jsondoes not exist yet and noSAP_*is set:/mcpanswers503until the first destination (and a token, or a destination nameddefault) has been created through the API.docker run … -e SAP_MCP_ADMIN_TOKEN=… -e SAP_MCP_DESTINATIONS=/config/destinations.jsonis a complete first start. - Put the API behind the same reverse proxy/TLS as
/mcp; the admin secret travels as a Bearer header like any other credential.
Rotating tokens and SAP passwords — step by step, with what needs a restart and what does not: Setup Guide → Rotating credentials.
4. Use with n8n
- Add an AI Agent node with an MCP Client Tool sub-node
- Set the MCP Client URL to
http://sap-mcp:8808/mcp(Docker) orhttp://localhost:8808/mcp, with a Bearer Auth credential holding your API key or destination token - The AI Agent node discovers the SAP tools automatically. Which tools it sees is your decision, not the model's: read-only by default, write tools only with
--allow-write, and per-token policies narrow it further. Design the workflow as a deterministic, human-authored sequence — the LLM fills in the parameters
Setup for SAP ECC
ECC NetWeaver backends require additional setup beyond the Quick Start. The MCP server supports ECC 6.0+ (EHP 7+) for OData V2, OData V4, IDoc HTTP/XML, and RFC/BAPI. Cloud-only S/4HANA tenants do not need this section.
1. Activate NetWeaver Gateway
In transaction SICF, activate the standard ICF services under /sap/opu/odata/. Then use transaction /IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE to register the OData services you want to expose.
The MCP server's catalog auto-discovery probes three paths in sequence and caches the first 200 hit:
/sap/opu/odata/IWFND/CATALOGSERVICE;v=2/ServiceCollection(S/4HANA default)/sap/opu/odata/iwfnd/CATALOGSERVICE;v=2/ServiceCollection(lower-case ECC)/sap/opu/odata/IWFND/CATALOGSERVICE/ServiceCollection(ECC EHP 7 v=1)
Override via ODATA_V2_CATALOG_PATH if your gateway uses a non-standard mount.
2. Install SAP NW RFC SDK (RFC/BAPI tools only)
Required for the rfc tool tier. Skip this step if you only use OData or IDoc.
Linux:
macOS:
node-rfc is declared as optionalDependencies -- if the SDK is missing, the server logs a Pino warning at startup and the RFC tier is skipped. OData and IDoc tools continue to work.
3. ECC-Specific Environment Variables
In addition to the variables documented in Quick Start:
Available Tools (22)
Core Tier (always active)
OData Tier (active by default)
IDoc Tier (on-demand via sap_enable_tools)
RFC Tier (on-demand via sap_enable_tools, requires SAP NW RFC SDK)
Meta Tool
Architecture
Integration Paths
Request Flow (OData Write)
Supported SAP Systems
The MCP server supports the following SAP backends. Connector availability depends on the target system; see footnotes for prerequisites.
Additionally validated against:
- SAP BTP Integration Suite (as intermediary for S/4HANA Cloud RFC/IDoc paths)
- SAP API Business Hub Sandbox
Documentation
- Setup Guide -- Installation, all 8 auth types, CLI flags, named destinations and tokens, Docker deployment
- Architecture -- Technical architecture, request flows, design decisions
- API Reference -- All 22 tools, resources, and prompts with parameters
- Examples -- SAP workflow examples with step-by-step instructions
- SAP interfaces, tool by tool -- which SAP endpoint each of the 22 tools calls, what is bounded, what leaves your network — for Basis teams, license managers and auditors
- Changelog · Releases · Issues · Discussions
Governance: how this fits SAP's rules
- Standard integration interfaces only. The server speaks OData V2/V4 through NetWeaver Gateway, IDoc over HTTP/XML and RFC/BAPI — the documented, supported ways into an SAP system (tool-by-tool list). No UI automation, no undocumented interfaces, no bulk replication of SAP data. Paging limits and time budgets are built in so a single tool call cannot turn into a load test of your Gateway.
- The write path is governed and auditable. Read-only by default; write tools exist only with an explicit
--allow-write; per-token policies can only restrict, never widen; every tool call leaves one log line with a correlation id that also appears on each SAP request it triggered. That is what makes "human-governed" verifiable: the workflow author, not the model, decides where writes are possible. - Two things to settle before you automate document creation. SAP's API usage policy contains terms on autonomous, generative use of its APIs — build workflows as deterministic, human-authored sequences with LLM assistance rather than open-ended autonomous agents (this server is designed for exactly that). And business documents created automatically (a sales order, for instance) may fall under SAP Digital Access licensing for your tenant — clarify that with your SAP account team before you go live. Neither sentence is legal advice; both are the questions your auditor will ask.
Who is behind this — and how to get help
guniweb-sap-mcp is built and maintained by GuniWeb — a consultancy with its own solutions: processes that work, systems that grow with you. GuniWeb optimises business processes for mid-sized companies, with more than 20 years of practice, strategic consulting and hands-on implementation, so that a company does not just become more digital but runs better. This server is one of those solutions: it runs in production at customers and is used in teaching and research. The compiled package on npm is free to use under the ISC license; the source code is not public.
- Community — questions, bug reports and ideas via Issues and Discussions, best effort. See SUPPORT.md.
- Production support — maintenance subscription with prioritised fixes, compatibility with SAP release changes and a direct channel; optionally with a response-time SLA for the write path: guniweb.de/sap-mcp
- SAP MCP Checkup — we review your n8n/SAP setup (auth, governance, tool visibility, performance) before it goes live: guniweb.de/sap-mcp
Contact: [email protected]. Security issues: see SECURITY.md — and note the zero-telemetry commitment there.
Technology
Built with:
- MCP TypeScript SDK v1.x
- axios -- HTTP client with CSRF + redirect handling
- jose -- JWT/JWKS validation for IAS/XSUAA auth
- fast-xml-parser -- IDoc XML + SAML assertion building
- Zod v4 -- Schema validation
- pino -- Structured JSON logging
- tsup -- ESM bundling
- TypeScript 5.9, Node.js >= 22.18.0
SAP, S/4HANA, ECC, NetWeaver, ABAP are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. This project is not affiliated with SAP SE.
License
ISC
Footnotes
-
NetWeaver Gateway ICF services must be activated (transaction
SICF). See Setup for SAP ECC. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 -
OData V4 in ECC is rare; most ECC NetWeaver Gateway services are V2. V4 is the default for S/4HANA. ↩
-
S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition does not expose RFC or classic IDoc-HTTP for external consumers. Use SAP BTP Integration Suite as an intermediary. ↩ ↩2
-
Requires SAP NW RFC SDK 7.50+ on the host.
node-rfcis declared asoptionalDependencies; missing SDK degrades gracefully with a startup warning. ↩ ↩2 -
SNC library (
SAP_SNC_LIB) is OS-specific (.so/.dylib/.dll) and must be installed separately. ↩ ↩2
Source: README.md at commit ff8cc87
Tools
0Version history
8- v0.10.0LatestOct 16, 2026
- v0.9.0Oct 13, 2026
- v0.8.3Oct 11, 2026
- v0.8.1Oct 10, 2026
- v0.7.0Oct 9, 2026
- v0.6.0Oct 1, 2026
- v0.5.1Sep 27, 2026
- v0.5.0Sep 16, 2026
Score
50% of the applicable checks met
How complete this listing is, computed from the registry entry, the endpoint and public sources. Not a rating of the server and not a statement that it is safe or working today: reachability is a dated check, and no installs or reviews go into the score.
- Reached in the last 30 days25 pts
Keep the endpoint answering the MCP handshake; SourceWeft probes it every 30 days.
- Auth declared10 pts
Declare the credential headers in the registry entry, or keep the endpoint answering the probe so its auth can be classified.
- Tools listed15 pts
Answer tools/list without a credential, or ship a package that starts in a sandbox without one.
- DescriptionRequired15 pts
- Logo10 pts
- Documentation15 pts
- License10 pts