mcp-proxy

mcp-proxy

About

The mcp-proxy is a tool that lets you switch between server transports. There are two supported modes:

stdio to SSE
SSE to stdio

1. stdio to SSE

Run a proxy server from stdio that connects to a remote SSE server.

This mode allows clients like Claude Desktop to communicate to a remote server over SSE even though it is not supported natively.

1.1 Configuration

This mode requires passing the URL to the MCP Server SSE endpoint as the first argument to the program.

Arguments

Name	Required	Description	Example
`command_or_url`	Yes	The MCP server SSE endpoint to connect to	http://example.io/sse
`--api-access-token`	No	Will be sent as a `Bearer` access token in the `Authorization` header	YOUR_TOKEN

Environment Variables

Name	Required	Description	Example
`API_ACCESS_TOKEN`	No	Can be used instead of `--api-access-token`	YOUR_TOKEN

1.2 Example usage

mcp-proxy is supposed to be started by the MCP Client, so the configuration must be done accordingly.

For Claude Desktop, the configuration entry can look like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-proxy": {
        "command": "mcp-proxy",
        "args": ["http://example.io/sse"],
        "env": {
          "API_ACCESS_TOKEN": "access-token"
        }
    }
  }
}

2. SSE to stdio

Run a proxy server exposing a SSE server that connects to a local stdio server.

This allows remote connections to the local stdio server. The mcp-proxy opens a port to listen for SSE requests, spawns a local stdio server that handles MCP requests.

2.1 Configuration

This mode requires the --sse-port argument to be set. The --sse-host argument can be set to specify the host IP address that the SSE server will listen on. Additional environment variables can be passed to the local stdio server using the --env argument. The command line arguments for the local stdio server must be passed after the -- separator.

Arguments

Name	Required	Description	Example
`command_or_url`	Yes	The command to spawn the MCP stdio server	uvx mcp-server-fetch
`--sse-port`	No, random available	The SSE server port to listen on	8080
`--sse-host`	No, `127.0.0.1` by default	The host IP address that the SSE server will listen on	0.0.0.0
`--env`	No	Additional environment variables to pass to the MCP stdio server	FOO=BAR

2.2 Example usage

To start the mcp-proxy server that listens on port 8080 and connects to the local MCP server:

# Start the MCP server behind the proxy
mcp-proxy uvx mcp-server-fetch

# Start the MCP server behind the proxy with a custom port
mcp-proxy --sse-port=8080 uvx mcp-server-fetch

# Start the MCP server behind the proxy with a custom host and port
mcp-proxy --sse-host=0.0.0.0 --sse-port=8080 uvx mcp-server-fetch

# Start the MCP server behind the proxy with a custom user agent
# Note that the `--` separator is used to separate the `mcp-proxy` arguments from the `mcp-server-fetch` arguments
mcp-proxy --sse-port=8080 -- uvx mcp-server-fetch --user-agent=YourUserAgent

This will start an MCP server that can be connected to at http://127.0.0.1:8080/sse

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install MCP Proxy for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install mcp-proxy --client claude

The stable version of the package is available on the PyPI repository. You can install it using the following command:

# Option 1: With uv (recommended)
uv tool install mcp-proxy

# Option 2: With pipx (alternative)
pipx install mcp-proxy

Once installed, you can run the server using the mcp-proxy command. See configuration options for each mode above.

The latest version of the package can be installed from the git repository using the following command:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/sparfenyuk/mcp-proxy

[!NOTE] If you have already installed the server, you can update it using uv tool upgrade --reinstall command.

[!NOTE] If you want to delete the server, use the uv tool uninstall mcp-proxy command.

Command line arguments

usage: mcp-proxy [-h] [--api-access-token API_ACCESS_TOKEN] [-e KEY VALUE] [--sse-port SSE_PORT] [--sse-host SSE_HOST] [command_or_url] [args ...]

Start the MCP proxy in one of two possible modes: as a SSE or stdio client.

positional arguments:
  command_or_url        Command or URL to connect to. When a URL, will run a SSE client, otherwise will run the given command and connect as a stdio client. See corresponding options for more details.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

SSE client options:
  --api-access-token API_ACCESS_TOKEN
                        Access token Authorization header passed by the client to the SSE server. Can also be set as environment variable API_ACCESS_TOKEN.

stdio client options:
  args                  Any extra arguments to the command to spawn the server
  -e KEY VALUE, --env KEY VALUE
                        Environment variables used when spawning the server. Can be used multiple times.

SSE server options:
  --sse-port SSE_PORT   Port to expose a SSE server on. Default is a random port
  --sse-host SSE_HOST   Host to expose a SSE server on. Default is 127.0.0.1

Examples:
  mcp-proxy http://localhost:8080/sse
  mcp-proxy --api-access-token YOUR_TOKEN http://localhost:8080/sse
  mcp-proxy --sse-port 8080 -- your-command --arg1 value1 --arg2 value2
  mcp-proxy your-command --sse-port 8080 -e KEY VALUE -e ANOTHER_KEY ANOTHER_VALUE

Testing

Check the mcp-proxy server by running it with the mcp-server-fetch server. You can use the inspector tool to test the target server.

# Run the stdio server called mcp-server-fetch behind the proxy over SSE
mcp-proxy --sse-port=8080 uvx mcp-server-fetch &

# Connect to the SSE proxy server spawned above using another instance of mcp-proxy given the URL of the SSE server
mcp-proxy http://localhost:8080/sse

# Send CTRL+C to stop the second server

# Bring the first server to the foreground
fg

# Send CTRL+C to stop the first server