A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for interacting with the Tenable Nessus vulnerability scanner. This server allows AI assistants to perform
A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for interacting with the Tenable Nessus vulnerability scanner. This server allows AI assistants to perform vulnerability scanning and analysis through the MCP protocol. The nessus mcp server wraps that behind the Model Context Protocol, so an assistant can use it through 8 defined tools rather than through you.
Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:
list_scan_templates — List available Nessus scan templatesstart_scan — Start a new vulnerability scan against a targetget_scan_status — Check the status of a running scanget_scan_results — Get the results of a completed scanlist_scans — List all scans and their statusget_vulnerability_details — Get detailed information about a specific vulnerabilitysearch_vulnerabilities — Search for vulnerabilities by keywordPrerequisites — The Prerequisites tool exposed by this serverYou will need 3 environment variables: NESSUS_URL, NESSUS_ACCESS_KEY, NESSUS_SECRET_KEY. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client. The configuration blocks on this page cover the common clients.
Plenty of developer tooling servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. Nessus's toolset — list_scan_templates, start_scan, get_scan_status and 5 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by Cyreslab-AI; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| list_scan_templates | List available Nessus scan templates |
| start_scan | Start a new vulnerability scan against a target |
| get_scan_status | Check the status of a running scan |
| get_scan_results | Get the results of a completed scan |
| list_scans | List all scans and their status |
| get_vulnerability_details | Get detailed information about a specific vulnerability |
| search_vulnerabilities | Search for vulnerabilities by keyword |
| Prerequisites | The Prerequisites tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"nessus": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/nessus-mcp-server/build/index.js"],
"env": {
"NESSUS_URL": "https://your-nessus-instance:8834",
"NESSUS_ACCESS_KEY": "your-access-key",
"NESSUS_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key"
}
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| NESSUS_URL | Endpoint or connection string the server talks to. | Yes |
| NESSUS_ACCESS_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
| NESSUS_SECRET_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
Give your coding agent the full DevTools toolbox: traces, network, console, heap snapshots and Lighthouse.
Dashboards, Prometheus and Loki queries, incidents and alerts — observability by conversation.
Errors with full context — stack traces, issue triage and AI-powered root-cause analysis from Sentry's server.
Enables enhanced web research capabilities for large language models through intelligent search queuing and advanced content extraction.
Automates browser interactions and enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to interact with web pages through Playwright and Chrome DevTools Protocol
Guides tool usage by providing recommendations for MCP tools at each problem-solving stage.