Using IBM API Studio

Learn to create projects, develop and organize MCP tools, LLM providers, apply policies, and publish to DataPower® Nano Gateway and Developer Portal using IBM API Studio.

IBM API Studio provides a streamlined environment to create, manage, version, and publish MCP tools and LLM providers efficiently. It supports flexible workflows that help developers organize projects, maintain project files, handle version control, and publish MCP tools and LLM providers to DataPower Nano Gateway and Developer Portal.

The basic workflow in IBM API Studio is as follows:

1. Create project

Start by setting up a new project in IBM API Studio. This organizes your MCP tools and LLM provider configurations in a single project, making management easier. For more information, see Creating projects.

2. Create MCP tools and register LLM providers

Convert existing APIs into MCP tools, register external MCP tools, and LLM providers that AI agents can discover and invoke. For more information, see Creating MCP tools, Registering LLM providers.

3. Apply policies

Apply policies to enforce security measures, rate limiting, transformations, or validations to ensure MCP tools and LLM connections work as intended and are protected. For more information, see Configuring policies.

4. Publish

Publish MCP tools, LLM provider connections, and its plans to DataPower Nano Gateway and Developer Portal. For more information, see Publishing projects, Working with products and plans.

You can also use Bring your own coding agent (BYOCA) functionality to access DataPower Interact Gateway (IDIG) capabilities from Model Context Protocol (MCP) clients such as Bob, VS Code extensions, and Claude Desktop. For details, see Bring your own coding assistant (BYOCA)