General Prompting Guidelines

When working with MCP-enabled AI assistants to manage your DigitalOcean infrastructure, follow these best practices:

• Be specific about the service: Mention the specific DigitalOcean product to help the assistant use the right tools.
• Include resource identifiers: Provide IDs, names, or UUIDs when referring to existing resources.
• Specify regions and sizes: Always include region slugs (like nyc3, sfo3) and size slugs (like s-1vcpu-1gb) when creating resources.
• Start simple, then iterate: Begin with basic queries to verify information before making changes.
• Request confirmation for destructive actions: Ask the assistant to confirm before deleting or modifying critical resources.

The following example prompts map to the specific tools exposed by each product’s MCP server.

App Platform

• “Show me all my apps in App Platform.”
• “Get deployment status for app app-id.”
• “Deploy this GitHub repository as an App Platform app.”

Droplets

• “Create a new droplet named web-server with 1GB RAM in NYC3.”
• “Reboot droplet droplet-id.”
• “Create a snapshot of droplet droplet-id called backup-2024-11.”

Kubernetes (DOKS)

• “List all my Kubernetes clusters.”
• “Create a new Kubernetes cluster named production-k8s in nyc3.”
• “Get the kubeconfig for cluster cluster-id.”

Databases (DBaaS)

• “List all my database clusters.”
• “Create a PostgreSQL database called production-db in nyc1.”
• “Delete database cluster cluster-id.”

Spaces

• “List all my Spaces access keys.”
• “Create a new Spaces access key named backup-key.”
• “Delete Spaces access key access-key-id.”

Insights and Monitoring

• “List all my uptime checks.”
• “Create an uptime check for https://example.com.”
• “List all my alert policies.”

Marketplace (1-Click Apps)

• “List all available 1-click apps for droplets.”
• “Show me Kubernetes 1-click applications.”
• “Install WordPress on my Kubernetes cluster cluster-uuid.”

Account and Common

• “List all available DigitalOcean regions.”
• “Show me my account information.”
• “List my SSH keys.”

Complex Multi-Step Prompts

For more complex infrastructure tasks, you can combine multiple operations in a single request:

• “Create a PostgreSQL database cluster named production-db in nyc3 with 3 nodes, then create a user named api-user and show me the connection details.”
• “List all my droplets in nyc3, then create a snapshot of the one named web-server.”
• “Create a Kubernetes cluster called staging-k8s in sfo3 with a node pool of 3 nodes, then install the nginx 1-click app.”
• “Show me the deployment status of my app, then if it’s unhealthy, trigger a new deployment.”

Troubleshooting and Information Gathering

• “What’s the current resource usage for my app app-name?”
• “Why isn’t my uptime check check-id passing?”
• “Show me all failed deployments for app app-id.”
• “Which of my droplets have backups enabled?”
• “List all database clusters in the nyc1 region.”

Best Practices for Destructive Operations

When performing operations that delete or significantly modify resources, be explicit:

• Good: “Delete droplet droplet-id but show me its details first to confirm.”
• Good: “I want to delete my database cluster production-db - confirm this is cluster-id cluster-id before proceeding.”
• Avoid: “Clean up my old resources” (too vague).
• Avoid: “Delete everything” (dangerous and unclear).