Unix Manual Server

Unix Manual Server (MCP)

An MCP server that provides Unix command documentation directly within Claude conversations.

Features

Get command documentation: Retrieve help pages, man pages, and usage information for Unix commands
List common commands: Discover available commands on your system, categorized by function
Check command existence: Verify if a specific command is available and get its version information

Installation

Prerequisites

Python 3.13+
Claude Desktop or any MCP-compatible client

Setup

Clone this repository
Install the package:

pip install -e .
# or
uv install -e .

Install the server in Claude Desktop:

mcp install unix_manual_server.py
# uv
uv run mcp install unix_manual_server.py

Usage

Once installed, you can use the server's tools directly in Claude:

Get command documentation

I need help with the grep command. Can you show me the documentation?

List common commands

What Unix commands are available on my system?

Check if a command exists

Is the awk command available on my system?

Development

To test the server locally without installing it in Claude:

mcp dev unix_manual_server.py

Security

The server takes precautions to prevent command injection by:

Validating command names against a regex pattern
Executing commands directly without using shell
Setting timeouts on all command executions
Only checking for documentation, never executing arbitrary commands

Logging

Logs are saved to unix-manual-server.log in the same directory as the script, useful for debugging.

use @modelcontextprotocol/inspector with npx under the hood.

uv run mcp dev unix_manual_server.py

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run unix_manual_server.py

License

MIT

Created with the MCP Python SDK. For more information about MCP, visit modelcontextprotocol.io.

This server cannot be installed

security - not tested

license - permissive license

quality - not tested

remote-capable server

The server can be hosted and run remotely because it primarily relies on remote services or has no dependency on the local environment.

Provides Unix command documentation directly within Claude conversations, allowing users to retrieve help pages, man pages, and usage information without leaving the chat interface.

Related Resources

Reddit Discussion about this server

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