API Ops with decK & MCP: Automate Kong Config
Learn how Verifone streamlined API management using Kong's decK CLI, spec-first configuration, and an AI-powered MCP chatbot to fully automate Kong Gateway deployments.
Key Takeaways:
- Moving from curl commands to declarative decK configuration eliminates fragile rollback scripts and enables version-controlled, tag-based API management
- The spec-first approach using OpenAPI-to-Kong conversion reduces manual configuration effort by ~50% and lowers the learning curve for new team members
- decK patch files keep OpenAPI specs clean and vendor-neutral while still applying Kong-specific settings like timeouts, health checks, and plugins
- A custom MCP (Model Context Protocol) server built on decK lets developers use natural language prompts to convert specs and sync configurations to Kong Gateway
- The recommended production workflow uses MCP-assisted config generation locally, commits to GitHub, then promotes through a structured API ops CI/CD pipeline
0:00 - Introduction & Verifone's Kong Journey
2:07 - Challenges with curl-based API Configuration
4:08 - Declarative Configuration with decK
6:11 - Spec-First Approach: OpenAPI to Kong
10:27 - Building API Ops Pipelines with decK
12:31 - Introducing the decK MCP Chatbot
15:51 - Live Demo: Natural Language Kong Sync
18:40 - Future Enhancements & Production Strategy
Explore Kong Gateway and decK at https://konghq.com.
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