@kryptosai/mcp-observatory

v0.20.3

Published

5 days ago

Test your MCP servers for breaking changes. Checks capabilities, invokes tools, detects schema drift between versions.

Downloads

4,328

MCP Observatory

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     O B S E R V A T O R Y

The first testing tool that is itself an MCP server. Your AI agent can scan, test, record, replay, and verify other MCP servers autonomously — catching regressions, schema drift, and security issues without human intervention.

Use it as a CLI, a CI action, or give it to your agent as an MCP server and let it test your other servers for you.

Quick Start

Scan every MCP server in your Claude config:

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory

Go deeper — also invoke safe tools to verify they actually run:

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory scan deep

Test a specific server:

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory test npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-everything

Add it to Claude Code as an MCP server:

claude mcp add mcp-observatory -- npx -y @kryptosai/mcp-observatory serve

Or add it manually to your config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-observatory": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kryptosai/mcp-observatory", "serve"]
    }
  }
}

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|-------------| | scan | Auto-discover servers from config files and check them all (default) | | scan deep | Scan and also invoke safe tools to verify they execute | | test <cmd> | Test a specific server by command | | record <cmd> | Record a server session to a cassette file for offline replay | | replay <cassette> | Replay a cassette offline — no live server needed | | verify <cassette> <cmd> | Verify a live server still matches a recorded cassette | | diff <base> <head> | Compare two run artifacts for regressions and schema drift | | watch <config> | Watch a server for changes, alert on regressions | | suggest | Detect your stack and recommend MCP servers from the registry | | serve | Start as an MCP server for AI agents | | lock | Snapshot MCP server schemas into a lock file | | lock verify | Verify live servers match the lock file | | history | Show health score trends for your MCP servers | | ci-report | Generate CI report for GitHub issue creation | | score <cmd> | Score an MCP server's health (0-100) | | badge <cmd> | Generate an SVG health score badge for README |

Run with no arguments for an interactive menu:

What It Does

Check capabilities — connects to a server and verifies tools, prompts, and resources respond correctly.

Invoke tools — goes beyond listing. Actually calls safe tools (no required params / readOnlyHint) and reports which ones work and which ones crash.

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory scan deep

Detect schema drift — diffs two runs and surfaces added/removed fields, type changes, and breaking parameter changes.

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory diff run-a.json run-b.json

Recommend servers — scans your project for languages, frameworks, databases, and cloud providers, then cross-references the MCP registry to suggest servers you're missing.

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory suggest

Or ask your agent "what MCP servers should I add?" when running in MCP server mode.

Security scanning — analyzes tool schemas for dangerous patterns: shell injection surfaces, broad filesystem access, missing auth, and credential leakage in responses.

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory test --security npx -y my-mcp-server

Record / replay / verify — capture a live session, replay it offline in CI, and verify nothing changed. Like VCR for MCP.

# Record a session
npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory record npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-everything

# Replay offline (no server needed)
npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory replay .mcp-observatory/cassettes/latest.cassette.json

# Verify the live server still matches
npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory verify cassette.json npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-everything

Watch for regressions — re-runs checks on an interval and alerts when something changes.

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory watch target.json

Scan locations

When you run scan, it looks for MCP configs in:

~/.claude.json (Claude Code)
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Desktop, macOS)
%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Desktop, Windows)
.claude.json and .mcp.json (current directory)

CI / GitHub Action

Add Observatory to your MCP server's CI pipeline:

# .github/workflows/observatory.yml
name: MCP Server Check
on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  observatory:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: KryptosAI/mcp-observatory/action@main
        with:
          command: npx -y my-mcp-server
          security: true

Action inputs:

| Input | Description | Default | |-------|-------------|---------| | command | Server command to test | (required if no target) | | target | Path to target config JSON | | | targets | Path to MCP config file for multi-server matrix scan | | | deep | Also invoke safe tools | false | | security | Run security analysis | false | | fail-on-regression | Fail the action on issues | true | | comment-on-pr | Post report as PR comment | true | | set-status | Set a commit status check (green/red) on the HEAD SHA | true | | github-token | Token for PR comments and commit statuses | ${{ github.token }} |

The action runs checks on every PR, comments a markdown report, and blocks merge on regressions. See action/README.md for all options.

Lock Files

$ npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory lock              # Snapshot all server schemas
$ npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory lock verify        # Verify no drift since last lock

Trend Tracking

$ npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory history            # Show health trends over time

Nightly Scans

$ npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory ci-report          # Generate regression report for CI

MCP Server Mode

No other testing tool is itself an MCP server. Add Observatory as a server and your AI agent can autonomously test, diagnose, and monitor your other MCP servers.

claude mcp add mcp-observatory -- npx -y @kryptosai/mcp-observatory serve

Your agent gets 9 tools:

| Tool | When to use it | |------|---------------| | scan | Check if all your configured MCP servers are healthy | | check_server | Test a specific server before installing or after updating | | record | Capture a baseline of a working server for future comparison | | replay | Test against a recorded session — no live server needed | | verify | Confirm a server update didn't break anything | | watch | Check a server and see what changed since the last check | | diff_runs | Find regressions between two check results | | get_last_run | Retrieve previous check results for a server | | suggest_servers | Discover MCP servers that match your project stack |

An AI tool that checks other AI tools. It's a tool testing tools that serve tools.*

* I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

Security

The MCP server runs inside AI hosts where an LLM chooses which tools to call. To prevent prompt-injection attacks:

Command allowlist: Only npx, node, python, python3, uvx, docker, deno, bun are permitted as base executables. The CLI has no restrictions.
Path validation: File-reading tools are constrained to the runs/cassettes directories.
No arbitrary execution: Use the CLI for unrestricted commands.

CLI vs MCP: Intentional Differences

| Feature | CLI | MCP Server | Why | |---------|-----|------------|-----| | watch | Polling loop | Single check + diff | Request/response doesn't support long-polling | | Interactive menu | Arrow-key navigation | Not available | MCP has no interactive UI | | Color output | --no-color flag | Always plain text | MCP returns structured content | | report | Renders saved artifacts | Not available | Agents read artifacts directly | | serve | Starts MCP server | N/A | Is the MCP server | | run | Reads target config files | Inline params | MCP tools accept params directly | | get_last_run | Not available (use ls + diff) | Available | Convenience for agents |

Compatibility

Works with any MCP server that uses standard transports:

| Transport | Examples | Adapter | |-----------|----------|---------| | stdio (most servers) | filesystem, memory, context7, brave-search, sentry, notion, stripe | local-process | | HTTP/SSE (remote) | Cloudflare, Exa, Tavily | http | | Docker | All @modelcontextprotocol/server-* images | local-process via docker run -i |

Servers needing API keys work via env in the target config. Python servers work via uvx. See the full compatibility matrix for tested servers and known issues.

Target config files

For more control (env vars, metadata, custom timeout):

{
  "targetId": "filesystem-server",
  "adapter": "local-process",
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem", "."],
  "timeoutMs": 15000,
  "skipInvoke": false
}

npx @kryptosai/mcp-observatory run --target ./target.json

HTTP / SSE targets

{
  "targetId": "my-remote-server",
  "adapter": "http",
  "url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp",
  "authToken": "optional-bearer-token",
  "timeoutMs": 15000
}

How It Compares

| Feature | Observatory | mcp-recorder | MCPBench | mcp-jest | |---------|:-----------:|:----------:|:-------:|:-------:| | Auto-discover servers | ✅ | — | — | — | | Check capabilities | ✅ | — | ✅ | ✅ | | Invoke tools | ✅ | — | — | ✅ | | Schema drift detection | ✅ | — | — | — | | Record / replay | ✅ | ✅ | — | — | | Verify against cassette | ✅ | — | — | — | | Response snapshot diffs | ✅ | — | — | — | | Benchmarking / latency | — | — | ✅ | — | | Jest integration | — | — | — | ✅ | | MCP proxy mode | — | ✅ | — | — | | Works as MCP server | ✅ | — | — | — |

Each tool has strengths. Observatory focuses on regression detection and CI-friendly workflows. mcp-recorder is great as a transparent proxy. MCPBench is the go-to for performance benchmarking. mcp-jest is ideal if you're already in a Jest workflow.

Prior Art

The record/replay/verify pattern is inspired by:

VCR (Ruby) — pioneered cassette-based HTTP record/replay
Polly.js (Netflix) — HTTP interaction recording for JavaScript
mcp-recorder — MCP-specific traffic recording proxy
MCPBench — MCP server benchmarking
mcp-jest — Jest-style testing for MCP servers

Limitations

Servers requiring interactive OAuth (e.g., Google Drive) need pre-authentication before Observatory can connect
Custom WebSocket transports (e.g., BrowserTools MCP) are not supported
A few servers time out or close before init — see known issues and compatibility

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines. The fastest way to contribute is to add a real passing target with a distinct capability shape, a clearer report surface, or a cleaner startup diagnosis.

If Observatory saved you a broken deploy, consider giving it a star. It helps others find the project.