MCP Studio CLI

Drive Studio
from your terminal.

A terminal REPL for MCP Studio. Every slash command, every quick command, every schedule — the same as the desktop app, in your shell. State lives at ~/.mcp-widget/ and is shared with the desktop bit-for-bit, so you can start a project in one and finish it in the other.

macOS · Linux · Windows (Node 20+) Single npm install Same state as desktop
$ npm install -g mcp-studio-cli
$ mcp-studio
Boots a REPL with >. Type /help to see the slash surface, or just type a question and hit return.

§01 — HOWOne agent, three front-ends

The CLI is a thin client over the same sidecar.

1

Spawn the sidecar

The CLI launches the same Node sidecar the desktop uses — same MCP runtime, same agent loop, same auth. JSON-RPC over stdio.

2

Share the data dir

Both clients read and write ~/.mcp-widget/ directly: projects, schedules, per-MCP storage, the encrypted credential vault. Atomic writes; a lock-file picks the schedule leader.

3

Drive any MCP

Slash commands, quick commands, OAuth flows over a loopback port — everything desktop can do, the CLI does in a shell.

§02 — DEMOWhat a session looks like

A REPL that feels like Claude Code.

mcp-studio · ~/.mcp-widget
$ mcp-studio
MCP Studio CLI · sidecar ok · scheduler: leader
> /help
slash commands:
  /help                show this list
  /mcp-servers         list installed MCP servers
  /install <source>    install an MCP
  /configure <mcp-id>  enter auth fields
  /project [name]      list / switch projects
  /schedule            list scheduled prompts
  /quit                exit

quick commands:
  /workspace [name]    Git: switch active workspace  [from dev.mcpwidget.git]
  /commit "msg"        Git: commit staged changes    [from dev.mcpwidget.git]
  /panel_toggle        Studio Core: toggle the desktop panel
> /project new demo
 project created: demo
> /workspace ~/code/mcp-widget
 active workspace → ~/code/mcp-widget
> what files changed on this branch?
 dev.mcpwidget.git.diff
 dev.mcpwidget.git.diff — thinking…

Three files: Panel.tsx (quick-command wiring), storage.ts
(overlay merging), and schedules.rs (lock-file leader).

> /quit

§03 — WHATWhat ships in 0.1

Everything you need to actually use it.

repl

Multi-turn agent loop

Stream agent:progress events inline — iteration counts, tool calls, errors. Markdown rendered with marked-terminal; ANSI strips when piped.

slash

Full slash surface

/help, /mcp-servers, /install, /configure, /project, /schedule, /workspace. Quick commands from any installed manifest route through the same headless dispatcher the desktop uses.

projects

Per-project memory

Every project gets its own history.jsonl, agent-context.json, and MCP-storage overlay. Switch projects with /project switch <name> and pick up where you left off.

schedules

Schedule leadership

A scheduler.lock file rendezvous: whichever client starts first (CLI or desktop) fires schedules; the other observes and surfaces fires inline. No double-fires.

vault

One credential store

AES-256-GCM with an OS-keychain umbrella key. credentials.enc is the same file the desktop writes; configure once, both clients see it.

oauth

Loopback OAuth

/configure spins up a one-shot loopback server, opens the browser, captures the callback, and exchanges the code via the sidecar. PKCE included. The desktop is not required.

§04 — ROADMAPShipped + next

What's working and what's coming.

Shipped · 0.1.0

  • REPL — readline-based multi-turn
  • Agent loop — streamed progress, marked-terminal
  • Slash surface — /help, /project, /configure, /install, /schedule, /workspace
  • Quick-command dispatcher — shared with desktop
  • Shared on-disk state — projects, schedules, vault, MCP storage
  • OAuth loopback — PKCE, state validation, 5-min timeout
  • Scheduler leadership — proper-lockfile rendezvous with desktop

Next

  • Tab support — mirror desktop's multi-tab transcripts
  • Built-in autocomplete — slash + quick command suggestions
  • Readline history — per-project, persisted
  • Secret input masking — raw-mode tty masking for /configure
  • Windows native — smoke-tested only on macOS / Linux today
  • Gallery browser — mirror desktop's curated MCP gallery