mcp-chat

mcp-chat is an open-source, generic MCP (Model Context Protocol) client designed for testing and evaluating MCP servers and agents. It supports interactive CLI and web-based chat interfaces for interacting with language models.

Quickstart

To get started, you need an Anthropic API key. The client can be run via CLI, connecting to an MCP server like the filesystem server.

Config

Configuration can be specified via a claude_desktop_config.json file.

Web mode

The --web flag enables a web UI for creating chats and configuring MCP servers dynamically. Chats are saved to ~/.mcpchats/chats.

Features

Key features include CLI interactive mode, web interface, compatibility with various MCP servers, model selection, custom system prompts, chat history saving, and tool call output viewing.

CLI Usage

The -p flag allows running prompts directly from the CLI. The -m flag allows choosing a model. The --system flag allows customizing the system prompt.

For developers of mcp-servers

Developers can test local builds of Python or Node.js MCP servers.

Development

The repository includes instructions for installing dependencies, running the CLI, building, testing, and publishing.

Publishing new release

Releases are managed via GitHub releases, automatically updating the package version and publishing to npm.