NimbleTools CLI (ntcli)

Command-line interface for the NimbleTools MCP Platform. Deploy, manage, and integrate Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers with Claude Desktop.

Features

• 🚀 Deploy MCP servers from a community registry to Kubernetes
• 🔧 Manage workspaces with isolated environments and access tokens
• 🤖 Claude Desktop integration with automatic configuration generation
• 🛠️ MCP client tools for testing and interacting with deployed servers
• 🔐 Secure authentication with Clerk OAuth and workspace-scoped tokens
• ⚡ Scale-to-zero serverless execution with KEDA auto-scaling
• 🎯 TypeScript with full type safety and modern ES modules

Quick Start

# Install globally
npm install -g @nimbletools/ntcli

# Authenticate and create workspace
ntcli auth login
ntcli workspace create my-project

# Deploy and test an MCP server
ntcli registry list
ntcli server deploy ai.nimbletools/nationalparks-mcp
ntcli secrets set NPS_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
ntcli mcp call nationalparks-mcp search_parks --arg query="Yellowstone"

# Generate Claude Desktop config
ntcli server claude-config nationalparks-mcp

👉 See QUICKSTART.md for detailed setup instructions

Installation

NPM (Recommended)

npm install -g @nimbletools/ntcli

From Source

git clone https://github.com/NimbleBrainInc/ntcli.git
cd ntcli
npm install
npm run build
npm link

Commands

Platform Information

ntcli info                    # Show platform information and resources
ntcli info --verbose          # Show detailed configuration
ntcli info --discord          # Open Discord community
ntcli info --docs             # Open documentation

Authentication

ntcli auth login              # Authenticate with NimbleTools
ntcli auth status             # Check authentication status
ntcli auth logout             # Clear stored credentials

Workspace Management

ntcli workspace create <name>          # Create new workspace
ntcli workspace list                   # List all workspaces
ntcli workspace switch <name>          # Switch active workspace
ntcli workspace delete <name>          # Delete workspace
ntcli workspace clear                  # Clear active workspace
ntcli workspace sync                   # Sync local storage with server

Server Management

ntcli server deploy <server-id>        # Deploy server from registry
ntcli server list                      # List deployed servers
ntcli server info <server-id>          # Get server details
ntcli server scale <server-id>  3      # Scale server
ntcli server logs <server-id>          # View server logs
ntcli server remove <server-id>        # Remove server

MCP Client

ntcli mcp connect <server-id>          # Connect to MCP server
ntcli mcp tools <server-id>            # List available tools
ntcli mcp call <server-id> <tool> --arg key=value    # Call MCP tool

Domain Management

ntcli domain show                      # Show current domain configuration
ntcli domain show --verbose           # Show all API endpoints
ntcli domain set <domain>              # Set API domain (HTTPS by default)
ntcli domain set <domain> --insecure   # Set API domain with HTTP

Registry & Claude Integration

ntcli registry list                    # Browse available servers
ntcli registry show <server-id>        # Get server details
ntcli server claude-config <server-id> # Generate Claude Desktop config

Configuration Management

ntcli config show                      # Show ~/.ntcli/config.json contents
ntcli config reset                     # Reset all local configuration

Token Management

ntcli token refresh                    # Refresh workspace token (1 year expiry)
ntcli token create                     # Create new workspace token
ntcli token list                       # List active workspace tokens
ntcli token revoke <jti>               # Revoke specific token by JTI
ntcli token show                       # Show token information

Claude Desktop Integration

ntcli makes it easy to integrate deployed MCP servers with Claude Desktop:

# Generate configuration
ntcli server claude-config nationalparks-mcp

# Copy the JSON output to your Claude Desktop config:
# macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
# Linux: ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json
# Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Example output:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nationalparks-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@nimbletools/mcp-http-bridge",
        "--endpoint",
        "https://mcp.nimbletools.ai/{uuid}/nationalparks-mcp/mcp",
        "--token",
        "your-workspace-token"
      ]
    }
  }
}

LangChain Integration

Use deployed MCP servers directly in LangChain applications:

import { DynamicTool } from "@langchain/core/tools";
import { ChatOpenAI } from "@langchain/openai";

// Create tool from deployed MCP server
const searchParks = new DynamicTool({
  name: "search_parks",
  description: "Search for national parks",
  func: async (query) => {
    const response = await fetch(
      `https://mcp.nimbletools.ai/${workspaceId}/nationalparks-mcp/mcp`,
      {
        method: "POST",
        headers: {
          Authorization: `Bearer ${workspaceToken}`,
          "Content-Type": "application/json",
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({
          jsonrpc: "2.0",
          method: "tools/call",
          params: { name: "search_parks", arguments: { query } },
        }),
      }
    );
    return (await response.json()).result?.content?.[0]?.text;
  },
});

// Use with LangChain
const llm = new ChatOpenAI({ modelName: "gpt-4" });
const tools = [searchParks];

👉 See examples/langchain-example.js for a complete working example

Configuration

Domain Configuration

Configure the API domain for connecting to different NimbleTools deployments:

ntcli domain show                           # Show current domain configuration
ntcli domain show --verbose                # Show all API endpoints
ntcli domain set nimbletools.ai             # Use production (default, HTTPS)
ntcli domain set localhost:3000             # Use local development (auto HTTP)
ntcli domain set dev.mycompany.com          # Use custom deployment (HTTPS)
ntcli domain set internal.api.com --insecure # Use HTTP for internal APIs

Environment Variables

| Variable | Description | Default | | ----------------------- | -------------------------- | -------------------- | | CLERK_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID | Clerk OAuth Client ID | Built-in default | | NTCLI_DEFAULT_PORT | OAuth callback server port | 41247 | | NTCLI_OAUTH_TIMEOUT | OAuth timeout (ms) | 300000 (5 minutes) |

Note: The API has been restructured for improved routing:

• Management API (api.nimbletools.ai): Workspaces, tokens, secrets, registry, server management
• MCP Runtime (mcp.nimbletools.ai): MCP protocol operations with simplified paths

Examples

Complete Workflow

# 1. Setup
ntcli auth login
ntcli workspace create data-analysis --description "Data analysis workspace"

# 2. Deploy servers
ntcli server deploy nationalparks-mcp
ntcli secrets set NPS_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY
ntcli server deploy weather-mcp --cpu "500m" --memory "1Gi"

# 3. Test functionality
ntcli mcp tools nationalparks-mcp
ntcli mcp call nationalparks-mcp search_parks --arg query="Yellowstone"
ntcli mcp call weather-mcp get_forecast --arg location="New York"

# 4. Scale for production
ntcli server scale nationalparks-mcp --replicas 3 --max-replicas 10

# 5. Generate Claude Desktop configs
ntcli server claude-config nationalparks-mcp > nationalparks-config.json
ntcli server claude-config weather-mcp > weather-config.json

# 6. Use in LangChain applications
cd examples
npm install && npm run langchain

# 7. Monitor and manage
ntcli server logs nationalparks-mcp --lines 100
ntcli workspace list

LangChain Integration

# Get your workspace info
ntcli workspace list
ntcli token show

# Set environment variables
export NTCLI_WORKSPACE_TOKEN="your-workspace-token"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"

# Run LangChain example
cd examples
npm install
node langchain-example.js

Advanced Usage

# Create additional tokens for CI/CD (1 year expiry by default)
ntcli token create

# Custom expiration (24 hours)
ntcli token refresh --expires-in 86400

# Interactive workspace selection
ntcli workspace select

# Verbose output for debugging
ntcli server deploy my-server --verbose --debug

# Copy Claude config to clipboard (macOS)
ntcli server claude-config my-server | pbcopy

Troubleshooting

Workspace Sync Issues

If your local workspace list doesn't match the server, use these debugging commands:

Check Sync Status

ntcli workspace sync
# or shorthand:
ntcli ws sync

Sample Output:

📊 Sync Summary
  Server workspaces: 2
  Local workspaces: 1
  In sync: 1
  On server only: 1
  Local only: 0

⚠️  Workspaces on server but not locally:
  production-workspace (a1b2c3d4-...)

   💡 To use these workspaces, you need to get access tokens:
   💡 `ntcli token refresh <workspace-name>`

Fix Server-Only Workspaces

# Get access token for server workspace
ntcli token refresh production-workspace

# Now you can switch to it
ntcli workspace switch production-workspace

Debug Storage Files

ntcli workspace debug
# or shorthand:
ntcli ws debug

# For full file contents:
ntcli ws debug --verbose

Sample Output:

🔍 NimbleTools Configuration Debug

📁 Workspaces File:
  Path: ~/.nimbletools/workspaces.json
  Exists: ✓
  Workspaces count: 2
  Active workspace ID: ws-my-project-12345...

Individual workspaces:
  ✓ my-project (ws-my-project-12345...)
    Token expires: Valid (expires in 120 minutes)
  ✗ old-workspace (ws-old-workspace-67890...)
    Token expires: Expired (expired 2 days ago)

Common Issues

"Workspace not found locally"

Problem: You see a workspace in ntcli ws sync but can't switch to it.

Solution: Get an access token for the server workspace:

ntcli token refresh <workspace-name>
ntcli ws switch <workspace-name>

"Already authenticated" after logout

Problem: ntcli auth login says you're already logged in after logout.

Solution: Force re-authentication:

ntcli auth login --force

Server returns HTML instead of JSON

Problem: Getting "Invalid JSON response" errors with HTML content.

Solution: This usually indicates an API endpoint issue. Check:

ntcli health --debug    # Check API connectivity

Architecture

The NimbleTools MCP Platform provides:

• Cloud-hosted execution with reliable server deployment
• Multi-tenant workspaces with isolated environments
• Community MCP registry for server discovery and deployment
• Secure credential injection at runtime
• Production-ready monitoring and logging

👉 See ARCHITECTURE.md for detailed system diagrams and data flow

Development

See DEVELOPMENT.md for development setup, testing commands, and contribution guidelines.

# Quick development setup
git clone https://github.com/NimbleBrainInc/ntcli.git
cd ntcli
npm install
npm run build
npm link

# Test
ntcli --help

License

Apache 2.0 - see LICENSE for details.

Support

• 📖 Documentation: docs.nimblebrain.ai | QUICKSTART.md | DEVELOPMENT.md
• 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
• 🌐 Website: nimbletools.ai

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