Get started

This page takes you from nothing installed to a public URL for a local MCP server, in about five minutes.

Install

MCP Warp is a single static binary, mcpwarp. No Node, no npm.

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew tap mcpwarp/tap
brew trust --tap mcpwarp/tap   # required once, on Homebrew 6+
brew install --cask mcpwarp

Upgrade with brew upgrade --cask mcpwarp.

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add mcpwarp https://github.com/mcpwarp/scoop-bucket
scoop install mcpwarp

Upgrade with scoop update mcpwarp.

Linux packages

Download the .deb, .rpm, or .apk from the latest release:

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt install ./mcpwarp_*.deb

Fedora/RHEL

sudo dnf install ./mcpwarp_*.rpm

Alpine

sudo apk add --allow-untrusted mcpwarp_*.apk

Manual install

Download the tar.gz (macOS/Linux) or zip (Windows) for your platform from the latest release, and verify against checksums.txt (sha256).

macOS binaries are unsigned outside the cask, so remove the quarantine flag once after extracting:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./mcpwarp

Log in

mcpwarp login

This opens your browser for a device-flow login. If a browser can’t be opened (for example, over SSH), pass --no-browser and it prints a URL and a code to enter manually:

mcpwarp login --no-browser

The terminal prints the login URL with your code, then the browser walks you through sign-in, granting the CLI access, and a confirmation page:

Terminal running mcpwarp login, printing an auth.mcpwarp.io device URL with a user code and waiting for the browser.

MCP Warp sign-in page with username or email, password, and GitHub and Google sign-in options.

Grant Access to mcpwarp CLI page asking to allow offline access, email address, user profile and user roles.

Device Login Successful page telling you to close the browser window and go back to your device.

Credentials are stored per-issuer under ~/.mcpwarp/credentials/, mode 0600.

Configure a server

MCP Warp reads ~/.mcpwarp/config.json (override with --config <path>). Add the server you want to expose:

{
  "servers": [
    { "name": "notes", "kind": "http", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp" }
  ]
}

Use "kind": "stdio" instead if you want mcpwarp to spawn the server itself — see Expose a stdio server and Expose an HTTP server for both shapes in full.

Check your config is valid before starting anything:

mcpwarp status

Start the tunnel

mcpwarp up

mcpwarp up connects, registers every configured server, and prints a table of public URLs. It stays in the foreground until you press Ctrl+C. On a terminal (stdin and stdout both a TTY) it runs a full-screen TUI; otherwise, or with --no-tui, it prints plain lines instead.

NAME     KIND   URL
notes    http   https://notes-anatoly.tunnel.mcpwarp.io/mcp

On a TTY it looks like this:

The mcpwarp up TUI showing a stdio server and an http server both active with public URLs, and the log pane open with the stdio server’s startup output.

On first up, you may see a USERNAME_REQUIRED error — sign in once at web.mcpwarp.io to pick a username, then rerun mcpwarp up.

Headless and CI

For scripts, services, or CI, skip the TUI and use a personal access token instead of an interactive login:

export MCPWARP_TOKEN=mcpwarp_pat_...
mcpwarp up --no-tui

Mint a token from the dashboard at web.mcpwarp.io — it’s shown once.

Give the token a name and an expiry:

New access token dialog with a name field and a 90-day expiry

The dashboard’s Token created dialog showing a new mcpwarp_pat_ token with a Copy button and a warning that it won’t be shown again.

Paste the URL into a client

Copy the URL from the table (in the TUI, c copies the selected row’s URL) and add it to your MCP client as a remote MCP server (custom connector / remote server / mcp.json, depending on the client). The client will run through an OAuth sign-in the first time it connects.

See Connect Claude, Connect ChatGPT, or Connect other clients for client-specific steps.