# Introduction

CLI that turns MCP servers into terminal commands.

## Why?

Companies invested years building MCP server integrations. 5,800+ servers, 10,000+ in production, 97M+ monthly SDK downloads. All that work exposes structured APIs over a standard protocol. [**Why MCP on the command line?**](/why-mcp-cli.md) explains why this matters and how `mcp` lets you reuse all of it from your terminal.

[**MCP servers are draining your hardware**](/mcp-servers-are-draining-your-hardware.md) — Every MCP client spawns all backend processes at startup and keeps them alive forever. We built lazy initialization and adaptive idle shutdown so the proxy only keeps alive what you're actually using.

## First steps

Are you new to `mcp`? Start here:

* [**Getting started**](/first-steps/getting-started.md) — Install, configure your first server, call your first tool. 5 minutes from zero to working.
* [**Tutorial**](/first-steps/tutorial.md) — A hands-on walkthrough that covers everything you need to use `mcp` day-to-day.

## Guides

Focused explanations for specific topics:

* [**Configuration**](/guides/configuration.md) — Config file format, environment variables, server types.
* [**Authentication**](/guides/authentication.md) — OAuth, API tokens, service-specific setup.
* [**Registry**](/guides/registry.md) — Finding and adding servers from the MCP registry.
* [**Scripting**](/guides/scripting.md) — Using `mcp` in shell scripts, piping, CI/CD.
* [**Proxy mode**](/guides/proxy-mode.md) — Expose all servers as a single MCP endpoint for LLM tools.
* [**Audit logging**](/guides/audit-logging.md) — Track every operation with queryable logs and real-time streaming.

## Reference

Technical details and complete specifications:

* [**CLI reference**](/reference/cli.md) — Every command, flag, and option.
* [**Config file reference**](/reference/config-file.md) — Full `servers.json` specification.
* [**Environment variables**](/reference/environment-variables.md) — All supported env vars.
* [**Architecture**](/reference/architecture.md) — How the codebase is organized.

## How-to

Recipes for common tasks:

* [**Supported services**](/how-to/services.md) — Setup guides for Sentry, Slack, Grafana, GitHub, and more.
* [**Troubleshooting**](/how-to/troubleshooting.md) — Common errors and how to fix them.


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