🛠️ Querying MCP Tools from the Command Line

This guide walks you through the process of discovering and invoking tools from an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server directly via your terminal.

✅ Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed:

• Node.js and npx: Verify installation by running:

  node -v
  npx -v

• MCP Tools CLI: Install using Homebrew:

  brew tap f/mcptools
  brew install mcp

  Alternatively, install from source:

  go install github.com/f/mcptools/cmd/mcptools@latest

• jq: For formatting JSON responses:

  brew install jq

🔍 Listing Available Tools

To view all tools provided by your MCP server:

mcp tools npx -y your-mcp-package

Replace your-mcp-package with the name of your MCP server package.

For example, if your package is named next-shadcn-mcp:

mcp tools npx -y next-shadcn-mcp

This command will output a list of available tools along with their descriptions.

🚀 Invoking a Tool

To call a specific tool with parameters:

mcp call tool-name --params '{"parameter": "value"}' npx -y your-mcp-package

For instance, to query the nextjs-docs tool with the topic "app router":

mcp call nextjs-docs --params '{"query": "app router"}' npx -y next-shadcn-mcp

This will execute the nextjs-docs tool with the provided query.

🐚 Interactive Shell Mode

For a more interactive experience, start an MCP shell session:

mcp shell npx -y your-mcp-package

Within this shell, you can list tools, invoke them, and view results without restarting the server each time.

🧪 Using Raw JSON-RPC Requests

If you prefer to interact with your MCP server using raw JSON-RPC requests, you can use curl. Here's how to list available tools:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000 -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "tools/list",
  "id": 1
}'

Replace http://localhost:3000 with your MCP server's endpoint.

📚 Additional Resources

• MCP Tools GitHub Repository
• Inspecting and Debugging MCP Servers Using CLI and jq

By following these steps, you can effectively query and interact with the tools provided by your MCP server directly from the command line.