See the full demo video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OJYzbmBOvA

The Architecture

Claude Code (CLI)
 → AgentGateway (port 4000)
 → T-IA Connect (port 9000)
 → REST API OpenAPI → MCP

Three Components:

• T-IA Connect — the MCP server that exposes TIA Portal V20 as an API for IA agents
• AgentGateway — Solo.io's Zero-Trust proxy that secures each MCP call
• Claude Code — the IA agent that drives everything in natural language

Scene 1 — Claude Builds a TIA Portal Project from Scratch

- Create a new project named "aihackathon" in GUI mode.
- Add a CPU 1511-1 PN to the project.
- Create a function block named "ProductionControl" with a simple ladder logic: 
  one input called "StartButton" of type Bool, one output called "MotorRunning" of type Bool, 
  and a contact/coil network that sets MotorRunning when StartButton is true.
- Give me a full overview of the project.

This is what it looks like live:

- TIA Portal opens, the "aihackathon" project is created

- The CPU 1511-1 PN is added automatically

- The ProductionControl block appears with its ladder network — contact #StartButton → coil #MotorRunning

- Claude provides a structured summary of the project

Meanwhile, the AgentGateway logs scroll in real-time: each MCP call is visible, traced, timestamped.

"Every MCP call is routed through AgentGateway — logged, audited, controlled."

Scene 2 — T-IA Connect, the Industrial MCP Server

T-IA Connect runs natively on Windows, directly connected to TIA Portal V20 via the Openness API.

It exposes over 190 MCP tools covering:

- Project management (create, open, save, archive, snapshot...)

- Hardware configuration (CPU, modules, rack...)

- Programming blocks (FB, FC, DB, OB — LAD, SCL...)

- Tags and variable tables

- Diagnostics and connection status

All of this is accessible to any IA agent via the standard MCP protocol.

Scene 3 — The AgentGateway Playground

The AgentGateway administration interface (http://localhost:15000/ui) offers a centralized view of all connected backends.

In our configuration, two backends are merged into a single MCP endpoint: siemens-tia-portal_ — native T-IA Connect tools via SSE tia-openapi_

the complete REST API of TIA Portal, converted into MCP tools via the OpenAPI spec 190+ tools, a single endpoint.

From the Playground, we can directly call tia-openapi_Health_Ping.

TIA Portal responds. Live.

Scene 4 — Zero-Trust: Blocking a Tool in Real-Time

This is the most important part for real industrial use.

In TIA Portal, closing a project (close_project) may seem harmless.

But in a production environment, we don't want an IA agent to be able to close a project opened by an operator without explicit authorization.

With AgentGateway, it's a line of configuration:

deny: mcp.tool.name == "close_project"

Once this policy is applied and the container is restarted, the close_project tool disappears from the list of available tools for Claude. It can no longer call it — no error, no possible workaround. The tool simply no longer exists from its point of view.

This is industrial Zero-Trust: what is not explicitly authorized does not exist.

Note: In this alpha version of AgentGateway (v1.0.0-alpha.2), hot reloading of policies is not yet supported — a container restart is required. This is a feature planned for future versions.

Conclusion

T-IA Connect + AgentGateway, this is the combination that was missing to deploy generative IA in an industrial environment:

T-IA Connect provides the depth of integration with TIA Portal AgentGateway provides governance, audit, and access control

IA can now assist automation engineers — without ever exceeding the limits set by IT/OT teams.

Learn more about T-IA Connect:t-iac-connect.com

MCP_HACK//26 — Solo.io & a16z