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Query DORA metrics using Port MCP

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Prerequisite: Install Port MCP

This guide demonstrates how to use Port's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to query DORA metrics using natural language commands directly from your IDE or AI-powered tools. By leveraging the MCP server, you can access deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery data without leaving your development environment.

DORA change failure rate query with benchmarking tableFrontend vs Backend change failure rate comparison

Common use cases​

  • Team performance analysis: Compare DORA metrics across different teams to identify top performers and areas for improvement.
  • Sprint retrospectives: Get quick insights into deployment frequency and lead times during team retrospectives.
  • Engineering leadership reporting: Generate on-demand reports for stakeholders about team velocity and reliability.
  • Incident response: Quickly assess team MTTR during post-incident reviews and identify patterns.
  • Continuous improvement: Monitor trends in change failure rates and deployment frequencies over time.

Prerequisites​

This guide assumes you have:

  • A Port account with deployment and incident data available.
  • Cursor IDE installed (we'll focus on Cursor, but you can also use VSCode, Claude, or other MCP-compatible tools).
  • Basic understanding of DORA metrics concepts.
Two approaches to DORA metrics with MCP

Port's MCP server enables DORA insights in two complementary ways:

  1. With DORA Metrics Experience: If you have DORA metrics set up, the MCP provides deterministic results over time, customized dashboards, and team-specific views. This gives you consistent, aggregated metrics that align with your organization's definitions.

  2. Dynamic DORA Calculations: Even without the formal DORA metrics setup, the MCP server can analyze your deployment and incident data on-the-fly to calculate DORA metrics. This approach provides quick insights for data you might not have aggregated yet in a proper way, letting you explore different definitions and time periods flexibly.

Both approaches work together - you can start with dynamic calculations to explore your data, then implement the DORA experience for consistent tracking and dashboards.

Set up Port MCP server​

The Port MCP server enables you to interact with your Port data using natural language queries directly from your IDE or AI tools.

Use Port's remote MCP server for new connections. The Docker image and uvx mcp-server-port package from the deprecated local MCP server repository are no longer maintained. If you used that server, remove its entry from your client's MCP configuration and follow the setup below.

Select your client and Port region, then follow one setup path. Use the EU endpoint (https://mcp.port.io/v1) for app.port.io, or the US endpoint (https://mcp.us.port.io/v1) for app.us.port.io.

Cursor, VS Code, and Claude Code can connect directly over HTTP. The mcp-remote package is a local compatibility proxy for clients that need it; it connects to the same remote Port server and is separate from the deprecated Docker/uvx server.

To connect Cursor to Port's remote MCP, follow these steps:

For the EU region, you can use the Cursor install link and continue with authentication in step 3. For the US region, or to configure the connection manually, follow all steps below.

  1. Open Cursor settings

    In the settings, click Customize, select MCPs, and then click New MCP Server.

    Cursor Customize settings with MCPs selected and New MCP Server highlighted

  2. Configure the MCP server

    Add the following configuration:

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "port-eu": {
          "url": "https://mcp.port.io/v1",
          "headers": {
            "x-read-only-mode": "0"
          }
        }
      }
    }
    US region

    If your Port organization is in the US region, replace https://mcp.port.io/v1 with https://mcp.us.port.io/v1.

    Cursor mcp.json defining a port-remote server with the Port US MCP URL
    Read-only mode

    The x-read-only-mode header defaults to 0, which allows all tools based on your permissions. You can change it to 1 to restrict the MCP server to only expose read-only tools. When set to 1, write tools are completely hidden from the available tools list, ensuring you can only query data without making modifications.

  3. Authenticate with Port

    Click on "Needs login" and complete the authentication flow in the window that opens.

    Cursor MCP Tools settings showing port-remote enabled with Needs login status
    Cursor OAuth session persistence

    Port MCP authentication works on the initial connection. If Cursor prompts you to re-authenticate every day or two, this is typically caused by a known Cursor OAuth issue rather than a Port-side session or configuration problem.

    When Cursor refreshes your OAuth session, it may fail to persist or update tokens correctly. This is especially common when you have multiple Cursor windows open. Port's logs may show invalid_grant errors when Cursor attempts to refresh with a stale token.

    For more details and workarounds, see these Cursor community discussions:

    Cursor has reported fixes for some MCP OAuth issues in stable releases after May 12, 2026. If you experience frequent re-authentication, update Cursor to the latest stable version and check whether the issue persists.

  4. Verify connection

    After successful authentication, you'll see the list of available tools from the MCP server.

    Connected port-remote server in Cursor listing available blueprint, entity, scorecard, and action tools

Let's test the queries​

Once you have the MCP server configured, you can start using natural language to query your DORA metrics.

Start a new chat session

  1. Open a new chat session in Cursor (Cmd/Ctrl + L).
  2. You should see the Port tools available in the tools panel.
  3. Start your conversation with DORA metrics queries.

Example DORA metrics queries

Here are practical examples of questions you can ask to get insights from your DORA metrics:

Team performance analysis

Query: "What is the Stardust team's MTTR?"

This query helps you understand how quickly the Stardust team recovers from incidents, which is crucial for assessing team reliability and incident response capabilities.

Stardust team MTTR query with incident breakdown

Query: "Compare DORA metrics between The magicians and Opus teams"

Compare deployment frequency, lead time, and incident metrics between two teams to identify performance differences and opportunities to share best practices.

DORA MTTR comparison between two teamsLead time and deployment frequency team comparisonOverall DORA assessment with team recommendations

Deployment analysis

Query: "How many deployments did we have last week, broken down by team?"

Get a comprehensive view of deployment activity across all teams to understand deployment frequency patterns.

Weekly deployments by team table in Cursor

Query: "Show me the deployment frequency for the Data Infra team over the last month"

Analyze deployment patterns for a specific team to understand their release cadence and velocity trends.

Data Infra team deployment frequency over 30 days

Change failure rate analysis

Query: "What's our change failure rate for production deployments this quarter?"

Monitor the percentage of deployments that result in failures, helping assess deployment quality and process effectiveness.

Q4 production change failure rate with benchmarks

Query: "Compare change failure rates between the Frontend and Backend teams"

Identify teams that might need additional support or process improvements in their deployment practices.

Change failure rate ranking across teams

Lead time insights

Query: "What's the average lead time for changes in the last 30 days?"

Get visibility into how long it takes to deliver code changes to production across your organization.

Average lead time with DORA benchmarks by deployment typeLead time distribution and insights for 30 days

Query: "Show me lead time trends for the Jokers team over the last 3 months"

Track improvement or degradation in a team's delivery speed over time to identify process changes or bottlenecks.

Jokers team lead time scatter plot downward trend

Advanced querying techniques

Time ranges and filtering:

  • "Show me DORA metrics for services tagged as 'critical' in the last 30 days."
  • "What's the deployment frequency for deployments owned by the Stardust team since last month?"
  • "Show me all incidents with priority 'high' or 'critical' resolved in the last 30 days."

Understanding the responses​

The MCP server responses rely on Port's data model, using the available MCP tools to access and analyze your data. You can:

Get detailed insights and take action

  • Ask your LLM to explain the results and provide context.
  • Request actionable recommendations like "how can we improve the lead time?"
  • Take follow-up actions directly through the MCP server.

Dive deeper into results

  • Drill down into specific metrics with follow-up questions.
  • Cross-reference DORA metrics with other Port data like service health or scorecards.
  • Explore different time periods or team comparisons.

Request custom visualizations

  • Ask to show results in a graph or chart format.
  • Request to create a custom web application to visualize the data (Claude Artifacts is excellent for this).
  • Generate executive-ready dashboards and reports.
Custom bar chart of Jokers team lead time trends
Getting better results

To get the most accurate and useful responses:

  • Be specific about time ranges (e.g., "last 30 days" instead of "recently").
  • Specify teams, services, or environments when relevant.
  • Ask follow-up questions to drill down into interesting data points.
  • Use the MCP server's ability to cross-reference with other Port data like scorecards and service health.

Next steps​

Now that you can query DORA metrics using Port MCP, consider these recommendations:

  • Enrich and deepen your DORA data model: Enhance your Port data model with additional deployment and incident sources for faster results and comprehensive dashboards implementation.
  • Find areas for improvement: Use the insights gained to identify specific teams, services, or processes that need attention.
  • Automate reporting: Use the MCP server in an automated way to produce executive reports or weekly team performance summaries.
  • Set up alerts: Configure Port automations to notify teams when DORA metrics cross certain thresholds.
  • Expand analysis: Combine DORA metrics with other Port data like service health, scorecards, and dependencies.

Learn more about DORA metrics​