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The Sign-Off Table

Lesson 3 of 5

SAP-supported versus community tools

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Search GitHub for "ABAP MCP" and you'll find a dozen servers. Some come from SAP, many come from the community, and they differ in support, scope and compliance. A developer who connects the wrong one to a company system can create a support gap, a security hole or an API Policy problem. This lesson sorts them.

What SAP delivers and supports

  • The ADT MCP server, inside ADT for Eclipse and ADT for VS Code. Support cases go to SAP under component BC-DWB-AIV, and SAP asks you to reproduce MCP issues in the VS Code extension first. SAP's tool reference adds a condition: support for the MCP tools is only provided if the customer has a valid SAP Joule for Developers, ABAP AI capabilities license.
  • SAP's open-source MCP servers for side-by-side development: the CAP server (cap-js/mcp-server), the UI5 server (UI5/mcp-server), the Fiori server (@sap-ux/fiori-mcp-server in SAP/open-ux-tools) and the MDK server (SAP/mdk-mcp-server), all Apache-2.0 licensed. The CAP server's README even shows the claude mcp add command for Claude Code.
  • Joule for Developers in ADT, and the SAP-managed models behind it, including SAP-ABAP-1.

What the community provides

Several open-source projects bridge coding agents to the ADT REST interfaces directly, without running ADT. These are community projects, not SAP-supported. Examples whose repositories exist today:

  • mcp-abap-adt (mario-andreschak/mcp-abap-adt, MIT): its README says its sixteen tools are read-only.
  • vibing-steampunk (oisee/vibing-steampunk, MIT): describes itself as an ADT-to-MCP bridge that can read and write code, debug and run tests.
  • ARC-1 (arc-mcp/arc-1, MIT): read-only by default, with explicit flags to enable writes and package restrictions.
  • fr0ster/mcp-abap-adt (Apache-2.0): advertises full create, change and delete support.

Some are well engineered. The question isn't quality; it's who answers when something breaks, and whether the access path is one SAP endorses.

Community, full writeCommunity bridges that create and change objects. Highest compliance and support risk.
SAP, full writeADT MCP server with edit tools enabled and package restrictions set.
Community, read-onlyRead-only bridges for analysis. Lower risk, still unsupported.
SAP, read-only useADT MCP server used for search, read, explain and ATC results only.
Place every candidate tool on two axes: who supports it, and how much it can change.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-aid-101

The API Policy angle

SAP published a new API Policy on 27 April 2026 (version 4.2026a). Its section 2.2.2 prohibits API use for interaction with "(semi-) autonomous or generative AI systems that plan, select, or execute sequences of API calls", except through SAP-endorsed architectures. SAP's API Policy FAQ (version 1.3, June 2026) answers how this applies to development tools in question 33: ADT APIs are SAP-internal and may be used for development only through endorsed channels. It lists SAP's Eclipse ADT, abapGit, SAP-provided developer tools that use ADT APIs, CI/CD pipelines using SAP-published tooling, and custom utilities built on the documented Eclipse Java SDK.

A community MCP server that calls ADT REST endpoints from its own code isn't on that list. Question 33 also says ADT APIs aren't intended for reading application tables, exporting business data or running agentic AI workflows on business data. Some community bridges can read table contents. That doesn't make every use illegal, but it puts the decision with your SAP contract owner, not with a developer on a Friday afternoon. Question 37 adds that SAP-published MCP servers such as the CAP, UI5 and Fiori elements servers are themselves endorsed for developer tooling.

  1. Is the tool shipped or published by SAP?Yes → check its license condition (for example, the J4D license for ADT MCP tool support) · No → treat as community; no SAP support
  2. Does it reach the ABAP system through an endorsed channel?Yes (ADT, abapGit, SAP tooling) → continue · No → ask your SAP contract owner before use
  3. Can it read business data or tables?Yes → disable that capability or keep it off company systems · No → continue
  4. Can you restrict it to development packages?Yes → configure the restriction · No → read-only use only
Four questions decide whether a tool belongs anywhere near a company ABAP system.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-aid-101
Both routes end at the same ADT APIs, but only the route through SAP's own tooling is an endorsed channel with an SAP support path.
The Sign-Off Table · thesignofftable.com/academy/sap-aid-101

Why teams still reach for community servers

Community servers appeared before SAP's server, and some still offer things SAP's doesn't, such as running without an IDE or working with older releases. SAP's FAQ is open about one gap: the ADT MCP server currently runs bundled inside the IDE, so it runs only while VS Code or Eclipse is open, and a standalone shipment of the language server and MCP server is "under discussion". If a community tool fills that gap, the right response is a documented risk decision, not a quiet install. Ask what it can reach, how it authenticates, whether it can read business data, how it is maintained, and what happens when SAP changes the ADT interfaces it depends on.

What would you do?

A Contoso developer found a popular community MCP server that can read table contents and edit code in CMD over the ADT REST interface, and wants to use it with an agent because it's faster to set up than ADT for VS Code. What should Kenji do?

Key points
  • SAP supports the ADT MCP server (with a J4D license condition) and publishes MCP servers for CAP, UI5, Fiori and MDK.
  • Community ADT bridges such as mcp-abap-adt, vibing-steampunk, ARC-1 and fr0ster/mcp-abap-adt are not SAP-supported.
  • SAP's API Policy FAQ (question 33) lists the endorsed channels for ADT access.
  • Tools that can read business data need a documented decision before use.
  • Keep a register of approved AI developer tools.

Check your understanding · not graded

Lesson check

  1. 1. Under which condition does SAP provide support for the ADT MCP tools?

  2. 2. Which channel does SAP's API Policy FAQ list as endorsed for ADT-based development access?

  3. 3. What does the mcp-abap-adt README say about its tools?