mcp-cmd

A simple Node.js-based command line MCP Client that exposes commands for listing and calling MCP tools.

Why?

There are other command line MCP Clients out there, but all of them spawn the referenced MCP Servers for every tool call.

mcp-cmd is different: you use its CLI to start and stop MCP servers, and the servers run in the background. That means successive tool calls to an MCP Server are handled by the same running instance of that server.

Usage

First, start a server by giving it a name and the command + args, then interact with it, then stop it.

# Start an MCP server
mcp-cmd start <servername> <...url-or-commands>

# List server tools
mcp-cmd tools <servername>

# Call a tool provided by the server
mcp-cmd call <servername> <toolname> --arg1=value1 --arg2=value2

# Stop the MCP server
mcp-cmd stop <servername>

Example

# start server
mcp-cmd start puppeteer npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-puppeteer

# list tools
mcp-cmd tools puppeteer

# navigate to a page, log the title, then take a screenshot
mcp-cmd tools puppeteer navigate --url=https://example.com
mcp-cmd tools puppeteer execute --code=document.title
mcp-cmd tools puppeteer screenshot --name=example

# stop the server
mcp-cmd stop puppeteer

Implementation Details

• dead simple CLI built using sade
• based on the official @modelcontextprotocol/sdk package
• only supports starting and stopping MCP servers, listing and calling tools (no resources)
• stderr from the tool during the call is forwarded to stderr