AI-powered Rust profiling: query performance metrics with LLMs via MCP

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration allows LLM agents like Claude Code to query your Rust application’s performance metrics in real-time. Instead of manually reading profiling reports, you can ask questions like:

"Which functions dominate total execution time right now?"
"Where is most of my memory being allocated?"
"Which mpsc channel has the highest throughput and queue pressure?"

and get instant answers.

Setup

Run your program with the MCP enabled alongside profiling:

cargo run --features='hotpath,hotpath-alloc,hotpath-mcp'

Available tools

Summary tools

These tools return aggregated performance summaries:

Tool	Description
`functions_timing`	Function timing statistics (calls, avg, p99, total time)
`functions_alloc`	Function memory allocation statistics
`functions_cpu`	CPU sampling attribution per function (requires `hotpath-cpu` feature)
`functions_cpu_snapshot`	Trigger an on-demand CPU sampling snapshot (requires `hotpath-cpu` feature)
`channels`	Channel metrics (sends, receives, buffer usage)
`streams`	Stream metrics (items processed, throughput)
`futures`	Future execution statistics
`rw_locks`	RwLock read/write wait & acquire-time statistics
`mutexes`	Mutex wait & acquire-time statistics
`sql`	SQL query execution-time statistics per normalized query (requires `sqlx_tracing_layer()`)
`threads`	Thread activity and timing
`gauges`	Custom gauge values
`dbg_entries`	All `dbg!` debug entries
`val_entries`	All `val!` value tracking entries
`tokio_runtime`	Tokio runtime metrics snapshot (requires `tokio` feature)
`profiler_status`	Profiler uptime status

Detailed log tools

These tools accept parameters to retrieve detailed execution logs:

Tool	Parameters	Description
`function_timing_logs`	`function_name`, `limit`	Individual timing logs for a function
`function_alloc_logs`	`function_name`, `limit`	Individual allocation logs for a function
`channel_logs`	`channel_name`, `limit`	Channel operation logs
`stream_logs`	`stream_name`, `limit`	Stream operation logs
`future_logs`	`future_name`, `limit`	Future execution logs
`sql_logs`	`sql_id`	Individual execution logs for a SQL query
`gauge_logs`	`gauge_name`, `limit`	Gauge value history
`dbg_logs`	`debug_id`	Detailed logs for a `dbg!` entry
`val_logs`	`debug_id`	Detailed logs for a `val!` entry

Configuration

Environment Variable	Default	Description
`HOTPATH_MCP_PORT`	`6771`	Port the MCP server listens on
`HOTPATH_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN`	-	Optional authentication token for secure access

Example with custom configuration:

HOTPATH_MCP_PORT=8080 HOTPATH_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=secret123 \
cargo run --features='hotpath,hotpath-mcp'

Claude Code setup

Basic setup (no authentication)

claude mcp add --transport http hotpath http://localhost:6771/mcp

"mcpServers": {
    "hotpath": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "http://localhost:6771/mcp"
    }
}

With authentication

If you’ve set HOTPATH_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN:

claude mcp add --transport http hotpath http://localhost:6771/mcp --header "Authorization: your-secret-token"

"mcpServers": {
    "hotpath": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "http://localhost:6771/mcp",
        "headers": {
            "Authorization": "your-secret-token"
        }
    }
}

After that, you can ask the model to answer performance questions directly using live profiling data.

Example queries

Once connected, you can ask LLMs questions about your running application:

"Which functions dominate total execution time right now?"
"Where is most of my memory being allocated?"
"Which mpsc channel has the highest throughput and queue pressure?"
"Are any functions showing high p95 or p99 latency spikes?"
"Show the last 10 execution timing events for process_request function"
"Compare latency and allocation behavior of sync_handler vs async_handler methods"
"Which threads are currently consuming the most CPU and memory?"
"Are any threads steadily allocating memory without deallocating it?"

Agent will use the appropriate MCP tools to query your application’s profiling data and provide insights.

hotpath-rs MCP integration showing LLM agent querying Rust profiling data

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