mcpfile

name: mcpfile description: Manage Docker-based MCP servers. Use when the user asks about available MCP servers, wants to start/stop MCP services, check MCP status, or needs to know what tools are available via MCP.

mcpfile is a CLI that manages Docker-based MCP servers defined in ~/.config/mcpfile/config.toml.

Check configured MCP servers

Read the config to see what's available:

cat ~/.config/mcpfile/config.toml

Commands

mcpfile status                       # show all services with running state and endpoint
mcpfile up <service>                 # start a service (SSE: detached, stdio: foreground)
mcpfile up <service> --bridge        # stdio over Unix socket (detached, prints socket path)
mcpfile up <service> --refresh       # re-fetch secrets before starting
mcpfile up <service> --force         # stop and recreate if already running
mcpfile down <service>               # stop all instances of a service
mcpfile install-skill                # install Claude Code skill to ~/.claude/skills/
mcpfile completions fish             # generate shell completions (fish/bash/zsh)
mcpfile -c <path> status             # use a custom config file

Config format

[defaults]
aws_region = "eu-west-3"
aws_profile = "infra"

[services.<name>]
image = "mcp/server:latest"
transport = "sse"           # sse (default, detached with port) | stdio (foreground or --bridge)
container_port = 8000       # required for sse, omit for stdio
env = { KEY = "value" }     # static env vars
secrets = { ENV_VAR = "/ssm/param/path" }  # fetched from AWS SSM
command = ["arg1", "arg2"]  # optional CMD override
aws_profile = "override"   # optional per-service override
aws_region = "override"    # optional per-service override

How it works

• SSE transport: creates container with ephemeral host port, prints <service> is running on http://localhost:<port>
• Stdio transport: runs foreground with inherited stdin/stdout by default
• Stdio + --bridge: spawns a background bridge process per invocation, each with its own container and temp Unix socket in /tmp. Multiple agents can run mcpfile up <svc> --bridge independently.
• down stops all instances of a service (label-based)
• Secrets are cached at ~/.cache/mcpfile/<service>/ with 1hr TTL
• AWS auth: user must run aws login --profile <profile> beforehand
• Uses bollard Docker SDK (no CLI shelling for Docker)

Source

The mcpfile CLI source is at ~/git/mcpfile.