Running mcporter Locally

You don’t need npx every time—here are the three local entry points we use while developing mcporter itself.

#1. Direct TypeScript entry (no build step)

All commands can be executed with tsx straight from src/cli.ts:

# list servers (text)
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts list

# list servers as JSON
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts list --json

# call a tool (auto formatted)
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts call context7.resolve-library-id libraryName=react

# call a tool but emit structured JSON on success/failure
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts call context7.resolve-library-id libraryName=react --output json

# auth flow
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts auth vercel

# auth flow with structured JSON status
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts auth vercel --json

# ad-hoc auth
pnpm exec tsx src/cli.ts auth https://mcp.supabase.com/mcp

These invocations match the pnpm mcporter:* scripts and are ideal when you’re iterating on TypeScript without rebuilding.

#2. Compiled CLI from dist/

When you want the same behaviour the published package ships with:

pnpm build          # emits dist/...
node dist/cli.js list
node dist/cli.js call chrome-devtools.take_snapshot

Set flags exactly as you would in production:

MCPORTER_DEBUG_HANG=1 node dist/cli.js list
MCPORTER_NO_FORCE_EXIT=1 node dist/cli.js call linear.search_documentation query="automations"

#3. Workspace executables

After pnpm add mcporter in your project (or inside this repo), the shim binaries are available:

pnpm mcporter:list
pnpm mcporter:call context7.get-library-docs topic=hooks

#Debug flags recap

• MCPORTER_DEBUG_HANG=1 – dumps active handles around shutdown (pairs well with tmux; see docs/hang-debug.md).
• MCPORTER_NO_FORCE_EXIT=1 – keeps the process alive even after cleanup (useful while inspecting debug output).
• MCPORTER_FORCE_EXIT=1 – force termination even if the above is set.
• MCPORTER_STDIO_LOGS=1 – print the buffered stderr output from stdio MCP servers (handy when debugging noisy backends).

All three entry points honour the same --config, --root, and --log-level flags as the published CLI.