🦉 hoot

⚠️ early beta - things might break. if they do, open an issue.

🤝 contributions welcome - see something that could be better? PRs are appreciated!

testing tool for MCP servers. like postman but for MCP.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e3add38e-9636-4f40-99d8-f4a2b8f0f056

why

needed a quick way to test MCP servers without spinning up a whole AI chat interface.

install

npx -y @portkey-ai/hoot

that's it. opens on localhost:8009

or install globally if you want:

npm install -g @portkey-ai/hoot
hoot

what works

• connect to MCP servers (http/sse)
• auto-detection - just paste a URL, we figure out the rest
• see what tools they have
• execute tools with params
• view responses
• oauth 2.1 if your server needs it
• copy stuff to clipboard
• 🦉 "try in hoot" links - share servers with just a URL (docs)
• 8 beautiful themes - light & dark modes (docs)

how it works

runs a node.js backend that connects to MCP servers (because CORS is annoying). react frontend talks to the backend over localhost.

browser → backend → mcp servers

no cors issues. backend handles oauth tokens in sqlite.

persistence

• server configs & tools: saved in browser localStorage (survives page refreshes)
• oauth tokens: stored in ~/.hoot/hoot-mcp.db (persists across npx runs)

your servers stay configured between sessions, even when running with npx!

running from source

git clone <repo>
npm install
npm run dev:full

backend runs on 8008, frontend on 8009.

debugging

there's a logger in the console:

hootLogger.download()  // get logs

🔒 security

hoot includes built-in security features for safe local development:

• ✅ session-based authentication
• ✅ rate limiting
• ✅ audit logging
• ✅ localhost-only access

runs securely on your local machine. read more

what's missing

• resources (coming)
• prompts (coming)
• more tests (working on it)

tech

react 19, typescript, vite, zustand, express, MCP SDK

license

MIT

made this because i was tired of curl-ing MCP servers. hope it helps.