captain-tool

An MCP server that connects your AI coding agent to Captain — a release train management and SDLC orchestration platform.

Once installed, your AI agent can interact with your Captain workspace directly in conversation: checking pipeline status, reviewing deployments, managing artifacts, and more.

Supported clients

• Claude Desktop
• Claude Code (CLI)
• VS Code + Copilot
• Cursor
• Windsurf

Requirements

• Node.js 16+
• A Captain account
• One of the supported AI clients above

Installation

npm install -g captain-tool

Setup (recommended)

Run the interactive setup wizard to automatically configure your AI client(s):

captain-tool setup

The wizard will detect your platform, find the binary, and write the correct MCP config for whichever client(s) you select. Supports all 5 clients above in one step.

Manual setup

Claude Desktop

Edit %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows) or ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

macOS / Linux:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "captain": {
      "command": "captain-tool",
      "env": {
        "CAPTAIN_API_URL": "https://app.getcaptain.dev/"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windows (requires cmd /c wrapper so the shell can resolve the .cmd shim):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "captain": {
      "command": "cmd",
      "args": ["/c", "captain-tool"],
      "env": {
        "CAPTAIN_API_URL": "https://app.getcaptain.dev/"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop to activate.

Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add captain -- cmd /c captain-tool

Registers under the short name captain (tool prefix mcp__captain__). If you previously added it as captain-tool, run claude mcp remove captain-tool to avoid a duplicate registration.

Auto-approve captain tools (recommended). Registration alone does not grant permissions — Claude Code will prompt "Allow captain to …?" on every tool call. The setup wizard (npx captain-tool setup) offers to fix this for you; to do it by hand, add one allow rule to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": ["mcp__captain"]
  }
}

mcp__captain (no tool suffix) approves every tool from this server. Your own deny and ask rules always take precedence over this allow rule. Note the rule prefix is the registration key: if you registered under a different name, the rule must match it. Old mcp__captain-tool__* rules from before the rename match nothing — the wizard sweeps them out of ~/.claude/settings.json; per-project .claude/settings.local.json files can hold more, so clean those by hand if Claude Code still prompts. For scripted installs, npx captain-tool setup --yes configures all clients and enables auto-approval without prompting.

VS Code + Copilot

Or edit %APPDATA%\Code\User\mcp.json (Windows) / ~/.config/Code/User/mcp.json (Linux) / ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json (macOS):

{
  "servers": {
    "captain": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "captain-tool",
      "env": {
        "CAPTAIN_API_URL": "https://app.getcaptain.dev/"
      }
    }
  }
}

Reload VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+P → "Developer: Reload Window") to activate.

Cursor

Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "captain": {
      "command": "captain-tool",
      "env": {
        "CAPTAIN_API_URL": "https://app.getcaptain.dev/"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Cursor to activate.

Windsurf

Edit ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (macOS/Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\.codeium\windsurf\mcp_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "captain": {
      "command": "captain-tool",
      "env": {
        "CAPTAIN_API_URL": "https://app.getcaptain.dev/"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Windsurf to activate.

First use

Once connected, ask your AI agent:

"Check captain status and get me set up."

It will walk you through logging in and selecting your workspace. After that, you can ask things like:

Show me all my pipelines.
What's the current state of my active workspace?
List any unhealthy connectors.
What components do we have?
Show me the deployment history for component comp-xyz.

Configuration

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | CAPTAIN_API_URL | https://app.getcaptain.dev/ | Captain backend URL | | CAPTAIN_DB_PATH | platform default | Local state and auth token | | CAPTAIN_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS | 30 | HTTP timeout per request |

Learn more

Visit app.getcaptain.dev to learn more about Captain.