Has anyone used docker with ADK with MCP servers?

[Allena101]

Hi 👋

I have gotten MCP servers working with ADK but I am trying to figure out to make it work using docker so that the ADK app can be deployed anywhere.

From what i understand now, best practice would be to use docker compose so that each MCP server is a separate container.
I also found out that docker desktop has their own MCP Toolkit now which seems to be great.

Search online, this depo, and the subreddit, docker does not really seem to be something that is used right now when it comes to ADK. Or it could just be that people that are learning it (like me) does not have the skills yet to implement it.

[jmdelatorre]

Hi! I have have docker containers running MCP servers locally.

This is my docker compose file

# Set working directory
WORKDIR /app

# Install system dependencies including Node.js (latest)
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    git \
    curl \
    && curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_current.x | bash - \
    && apt-get install -y nodejs \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Copy requirements first for better caching
COPY requirements.txt .

# Install uv for faster dependency resolution
RUN pip install --upgrade pip uv

# Install Python dependencies using uv (much faster than pip)
RUN uv pip install --system --no-cache -r requirements.txt

# Copy the entire backend directory contents to /app
COPY . ./

# Copy any .env files from parent directory if they exist (using shell form)
RUN cp ../.env* ./ 2>/dev/null || true

# Set Python path
ENV PYTHONPATH=/app

# Set environment variables
ENV GOOGLE_GENAI_USE_VERTEXAI=False

# Default command (will be overridden)
CMD ["python", "scripts/process_single_job.py"] 

[Allena101]

Thanks mate! This will be very helpful.

Can you explain what this line does:

Copy any .env files from parent directory if they exist (using shell form)

RUN cp ../.env* ./ 2>/dev/null || true

Does it mean that if you have a .env file in your project root then it gets copied?

Do you know how much this changes if you use gcloud instead?

Also, i read that you can (perhaps should) install each mcp server as its own seperate service. Kind of like this (dont know if this works, just an example file i have not tested):

version: '3.8'
services:
fastapi-app:
build: .
ports:
- "8080:8080"
depends_on:
- mcp-server

mcp-server:
image: mongodb/mongodb-mcp-server:latest
environment:
- MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING=mongodb://mongo:27017
ports:
- "8081:8080" # MCP server runs on 8080 by default, mapped to 8081 on host
depends_on:
- mongo

mongo:
image: mongo:6.0
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "27017:27017"
volumes:
- mongo_data:/data/db

volumes:
mongo_data:

[jdegraft]

Hi 👋

I have gotten MCP servers working with ADK but I am trying to figure out to make it work using docker so that the ADK app can be deployed anywhere.

From what i understand now, best practice would be to use docker compose so that each MCP server is a separate container. I also found out that docker desktop has their own MCP Toolkit now which seems to be great.

Search online, this depo, and the subreddit, docker does not really seem to be something that is used right now when it comes to ADK. Or it could just be that people that are learning it (like me) does not have the skills yet to implement it.

So I have done this.

But is doesn't work on windows, becuase spawning process in windows throws notimplemented exception.

You have to create a python script to start univicorn server, and set the

if sys.platform == "win32":
asyncio.set_event_loop_policy(asyncio.WindowsProactorEventLoopPolicy())

and use this script instead of adk web

I hope this issue is addressed more correctly.