AWS Customer Playbook Advisor

You can access up-to-date AWS security playbooks and proactive guidance through this MCP server. It fetches official AWS playbooks in real time, extracts concise recommendations, and provides service-specific security advice directly to your MCP-enabled client. This makes it easier to translate AWS security best practices into your day-to-day response and hardening workflows.

How to use

Interact with the AWS Customer Playbook Advisor MCP using an MCP client to retrieve specific playbooks, get preventive guidance for AWS services, or list all available playbooks. You can ask for targeted help like a S3 data-leak playbook, ransomware incident response guidance, or general security best practices for IAM, EC2, RDS, and more. The server returns human-friendly summaries and actionable steps you can apply in your environment.

How to install

Prerequisites you need before installing: Node.js 18 or higher, npm or yarn, and Claude Desktop.

# 1. Clone the MCP server repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/aws-customer-playbook-advisor-mcp.git
cd aws-customer-playbook-advisor-mcp

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Build the project
npm run build

# 4. Configure Claude Desktop to load the MCP server
# macOS location
#   ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
# Windows location
#   %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

# 5. Add the MCP server entry to Claude Desktop configuration
# (Replace /path/to/... with the actual build path on your machine)

Next, add the MCP server configuration to Claude Desktop so you can start interacting with the server. Use the exact JSON block shown below and place it in your Claude Desktop settings file. This config runs the MCP server locally via Node.js and points to the compiled entry in dist/index.js.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aws-security-advisor": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/aws-customer-playbook-advisor-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

After saving the configuration, restart Claude Desktop to load the new MCP server. You can then start interacting with AWS security guidance directly from your Claude workspace.

Additional notes

Key features you can use via the MCP server include dynamic retrieval of security playbooks from the official AWS sources, smart content extraction for summaries and preventive guidance, service-specific recommendations for S3, IAM, EC2, RDS, and more, and a built-in five-minute caching layer to improve performance.

If you want to explore what playbooks are available, you can ask for a full list of AWS security playbooks and for a specific scenario like an IAM security best-practices guide or an S3 incident response checklist.

No authentication is required to access the configured MCP endpoint in Claude Desktop; it relies on public endpoints for the underlying AWS playbooks. Always verify final security decisions with your security team before applying actions in production.

Troubleshooting and tips

Common issues may include the MCP server not appearing in Claude Desktop after startup, or the tool taking longer to fetch a requested playbook. Check that the build path in the Claude Desktop config exactly matches the dist/index.js location, ensure Node.js is installed and accessible, and confirm that the server process is running by checking your system processes for node and the relevant JavaScript bundles.

Available tools

get_aws_playbook

Fetches a specific AWS security playbook based on a scenario keyword and optional playbook name.

get_prevention_guidance

Provides preventive security guidance for a specified AWS service.

list_available_playbooks

Lists all available AWS security playbooks from the official source.