MCP Manager

A native macOS app for running your MCP servers once, managing them from a UI, and sharing them with every AI tool on your Mac — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Claude Desktop — and with remote machines that SSH into it.

The problem. Each client keeps its own JSON/TOML file of MCP servers. Changing a token means hunting through ~/.claude.json, ~/.codex/config.toml, .cursor/mcp.json… and every new session starts its own copy of every server.

The fix. MCP Manager runs every server in a single background engine and exposes them through one endpoint. You connect each client once, with a single entry. After that you add, remove, or disable servers and individual tools in the app, and every connected client picks up the change straight away via tools/list_changed, without anyone editing JSON.

Claude Code ─┐                                   ┌─ uvx mcp-atlassian   (Jira, PAT)
Codex ───────┤  http://127.0.0.1:7717/mcp        ├─ npx @playwright/mcp
Cursor ──────┼──────────────► MCP Manager engine ┼─ docker github-mcp-server
VS Code ─────┤   (one process per server,        ├─ https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/
remote VM ───┘    shared by all sessions)        └─ npx mcp-remote https://mcp.atlassian.com/v2/mcp (OAuth)
  (ssh … bridge)

Features

• Catalog of 36 verified presets. Covers Atlassian (Rovo OAuth, Cloud API token, Jira/Confluence Server & Data Center PAT with read-only mode), GitHub (remote and Docker), GitLab (self-managed), Playwright, Chrome DevTools, Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, Google Sheets & Drive (OAuth or service account), Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, Linear, Sentry, Figma, Context7, Brave Search, Supabase, Kubernetes, Docker, filesystem/git/fetch/memory/time, and more. You fill in a form; the app never asks you to write JSON.

• Import what you already have. The app reads MCP servers from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Windsurf and opencode configs. You can also paste any mcpServers snippet from a README. Import can replace the old entries with the single hub entry, and keeps a backup of the file.

• One-click client connection. The app writes the hub entry into each client's config in that client's own format. Codex TOML is edited without losing your comments.

• Remote machines.

  • The built-in bridge command speaks MCP over SSH's stdin/stdout: ssh mac ~/.mcp-manager/bin/mcp-manager bridge. No ports are opened.

  • Alternatively, use an SSH tunnel, or listen on your LAN or Tailscale IP with a bearer token.

• Per-tool control. Hide individual tools from every client to save context. You can also run any tool from the UI with JSON arguments to debug it.

• Runtime supervision.

  • Live logs per server.

  • Automatic restart with backoff when a server crashes.

  • Secrets are stored separately with mode 0600 and never shown again.

  • The engine starts at login through launchd, so it keeps serving clients even when the app is closed.

• Endpoints. /mcp exposes every enabled server with tool names prefixed <id>__tool. /mcp/<id> exposes a single server with its original tool names.

Related MCP server: Toolport

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel.

• Node.js 20 or later (brew install node). It runs the engine and is needed by npx-based servers anyway.

• Optional, depending on which presets you use: uv (brew install uv) for uvx servers, and Docker Desktop.

• To build: Swift 5.10 or later. The Xcode Command Line Tools are enough; the full Xcode app is not required.

Build & run

npm install
npm run build            # bundles the engine and builds "build/MCP Manager.app"
open "build/MCP Manager.app"

To install, drag build/MCP Manager.app to /Applications. On first launch the app installs the engine as a launchd agent (io.github.mcp-manager). If you move the app later, use Settings → Reinstall Service.

Without Xcode, the newest SDKs shipped with the Command Line Tools cannot expand SwiftUI's @State macro. scripts/build-app.sh automatically falls back to the newest SDK that works, for example MacOSX26.5.sdk.

Connecting clients

In the app, open Clients and click Connect. The equivalent commands are:

# Claude Code (user scope)
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http mcpm http://127.0.0.1:7717/mcp

# Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)
[mcp_servers.mcpm]
url = "http://127.0.0.1:7717/mcp"
tool_timeout_sec = 1800

For a remote machine or VM that can SSH into the Mac with key-based auth:

claude mcp add --scope user mcpm -- ssh -T -o BatchMode=yes you@your-mac ~/.mcp-manager/bin/mcp-manager bridge

The bridge re-initializes transparently if the engine restarts.

Claude VM Agent (VS Code)

Claude VM Agent 0.31.0 or later reads ~/.mcp-manager/config.json directly:

• Every enabled server appears in the extension's Skills & MCP panel, turned on by default.

• All servers reach the VM through one reverse SSH tunnel to the hub, with no per-tab supergateway.

• There is nothing to connect. The Clients page shows the extension as Automatic, or Update needed if an older version is installed.

CLI

The app installs a shim at ~/.mcp-manager/bin/mcp-manager.

mcp-manager status                  engine + server status
mcp-manager clients                 detected clients
mcp-manager connect <client>        add the hub entry (claude-code, codex, cursor, vscode, gemini, …)
mcp-manager bridge [--server ID]    stdio ⇄ hub bridge (Claude Desktop, SSH)
mcp-manager service install|uninstall|restart|status
mcp-manager token                   access token for LAN/Tailscale clients

Security model

• The engine binds to 127.0.0.1 by default. Other interfaces are opt-in, and requests from them always require the bearer token.

• Loopback requests without a token must carry a local Host header and must not come from a cross-site Origin. This blocks DNS-rebinding and drive-by requests from web pages.

• Secret env vars and headers are stored in ~/.mcp-manager/secrets.json with mode 0600. The API never returns them.

• Before editing a client config file, the app writes a backup next to it named *.mcpm-backup-<timestamp>.

Files

Development

src/            engine (TypeScript): upstream process manager, MCP gateway, REST API, client adapters, CLI
presets/        catalog.json — add a preset here (see src/presets.ts for the schema)
macos/          SwiftUI app (Swift Package)
scripts/        build-app.sh, icon renderer
test/           unit + end-to-end tests (real engine, real MCP clients)

npm test                       # engine tests
npm run dev:engine             # engine with reload (port 7717)
MCPM_ENGINE_CLI=$PWD/dist/cli.js swift run --package-path macos   # app against a dev engine

When adding a preset, cite the source you verified it against in verifiedSource. The unit tests render every preset, so run them before submitting.

Roadmap

• OAuth for remote servers handled natively by the hub, instead of through mcp-remote

• Profiles: named subsets of servers per client or project

• Signed and notarized releases, plus a Homebrew cask

• Optional bundled Node runtime

License

MIT