Getmcpm Cli

mcpm

The MCP package manager that guards your AI's tools at runtime -- search, install, audit, and inspect every MCP server from your terminal.

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The risky part of an MCP server doesn't show up at install -- it shows up while your agent is running: prompt injection hidden in a tool's output, a server that quietly rewrites its tools after you approved them, a sampling request that smuggles instructions into your model. mcpm scores every install for hardcoded secrets, prompt injection, and typosquatting (66% of MCP servers have security findings) -- then runs a live guard between your AI client and each server, pinning tool definitions against rug-pulls and blocking injection before it reaches the model.

Quick start

Install with the package manager you already use:

| Method | Command | |---|---| | npm (global) | npm install -g @getmcpm/cli | | npx (no install) | npx @getmcpm/cli | | pnpm | pnpm add -g @getmcpm/cli | | mise | mise use -g npm:@getmcpm/cli |

The binary is mcpm. Heads up: the mcpm Homebrew formula is a different, unrelated project (mcpm.sh) — install this mcpm via npm/npx/pnpm/mise above (all resolve the scoped @getmcpm/cli package, so there's no name collision). A dedicated Homebrew tap is deferred; see [docs/DISTRIBUTION.md](docs/DISTRIBUTION.md).

mcpm search filesystem
mcpm info io.github.domdomegg/filesystem-mcp
mcpm install io.github.domdomegg/filesystem-mcp

Features

Search the MCP registry

Query the official MCP Registry and see results with trust indicators.

$ mcpm search filesystem

  Name                                              Description                    Score
  io.github.domdomegg/filesystem-mcp                 File system access via MCP     82/100
  io.github.Digital-Defiance/mcp-filesystem           Read-only filesystem server    67/100
  ...

Install with trust assessment

Every install runs a metadata-based trust assessment before writing config.

$ mcpm install io.github.domdomegg/filesystem-mcp

  Trust Score: 82/100 (safe)
    Health check:    30/30
    Static scan:     32/40
    External scan:    —  (install mcp-scan for full coverage)
    Registry meta:   10/10

  Install to Claude Desktop? (Y/n)

Audit installed servers

Scan everything you have installed. Get a trust report.

$ mcpm audit

  Server                                   Client          Score   Level
  servers-filesystem                        Claude Desktop  82/100  safe
  servers-github                            Cursor          74/100  caution
  some-sketchy-server                       VS Code         31/100  risky

Cross-IDE support

One tool for all your AI clients. mcpm reads and writes the correct config format for each.

$ mcpm list

  Client            Server Name                  Status     Command/URL
  Claude Desktop    servers-filesystem           active     npx -y servers-filesystem
  Claude Desktop    servers-github               active     npx -y servers-github
  Cursor            servers-fetch                disabled   npx -y servers-fetch

Doctor: check your MCP setup health

Find misconfigurations, missing runtimes, and broken servers.

$ mcpm doctor

  Checking MCP setup...
  [pass] Claude Desktop config found
  [pass] npx runtime available
  [warn] Cursor config not found
  [pass] 3 servers installed, 0 with errors

Stack files: docker-compose for MCP

Declare your project's MCP servers in mcpm.yaml, lock versions with trust snapshots, and let every team member replicate the setup with one command.

mcpm export > mcpm.yaml          # dump current setup
mcpm lock                        # resolve versions + trust snapshot
mcpm up                          # install everything from mcpm.yaml
mcpm diff                        # compare installed vs declared state

Stack files include a trust policy. If a server's trust score drops below the threshold, mcpm up blocks it.

version: "1"
policy:
  minTrustScore: 60
  blockOnScoreDrop: true
servers:
  io.github.domdomegg/filesystem-mcp:
    version: "^1.0.0"
  io.github.modelcontextprotocol/servers-github:
    version: "1.2.3"
    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: { required: true, secret: true }

Scaffold a stack file

Start a new project's MCP setup in one command. mcpm init writes a starter mcpm.yaml you fill in with servers from mcpm search.

$ mcpm init

  Created mcpm.yaml.

  Next steps:
    mcpm search    find MCP servers in the registry
    edit mcpm.yaml        add them under `servers:`
    mcpm lock             resolve and lock versions
    mcpm up               install from the stack file

It refuses to clobber an existing mcpm.yaml (pass --force to overwrite). mcpm deliberately doesn't ship curated packs — blessing specific community servers is a trust decision a security tool shouldn't bake in.

Trust score

The trust score is a 0-100 assessment based on publicly available metadata. It is not a source code audit.

What it checks:

| Component | Points | What it measures | |---|---|---| | Health check | 0-30 | Can the server start and respond to list_tools? | | Static scan | 0-40 | Regex-based detection of hardcoded secrets, prompt injection patterns in tool descriptions, typosquatting in package names, suspicious argument schemas | | External scanner | 0-20 | Results from MCP-Scan if installed (optional) | | Registry metadata | 0-10 | Verified publisher, publish date, download count (capped to 0 when critical findings present) |

Levels: safe (80+), caution (50-79), risky (below 50).

Without an external scanner installed, the maximum possible score is 80/100. The static scan catches common patterns but cannot detect all vulnerabilities. Treat the score as a signal, not a guarantee.

Commands

| Command | Description | |---|---| | mcpm search | Search the MCP registry for servers | | mcpm install | Install an MCP server from the registry | | mcpm info | Show full details for an MCP server | | mcpm list | List all installed MCP servers across detected AI clients | | mcpm remove | Remove an MCP server from client config(s) | | mcpm audit | Scan all installed servers and produce a trust report (--json, --sarif for GitHub code-scanning) | | mcpm update | Check for newer versions and update installed servers | | mcpm outdated | Show version drift and trust regression for installed servers | | mcpm secrets | Manage MCP server credentials (AES-GCM encrypted at rest; key held in the OS keychain — macOS Keychain / libsecret / Windows DPAPI — so a copied store can't be decrypted off-machine, with a machine-derived-key fallback where no keychain is available). mcpm secrets migrate upgrades older entries | | mcpm publish scaffold | Create a .mcpm-publish.yaml manifest interactively | | mcpm publish check | Dry-run: show trust score and what would be submitted | | mcpm publish | Submit to the official MCP registry (requires GITHUB_TOKEN) | | mcpm doctor | Check MCP setup health and report issues (--json structured model, --report redacted paste-for-bug-reports snapshot) | | mcpm init | Scaffold a starter mcpm.yaml stack file in the current directory | | mcpm disable | Disable an MCP server without removing it from config | | mcpm enable | Re-enable a previously disabled MCP server | | mcpm import | Import existing MCP servers from client config files | | mcpm alias | Create short aliases for long MCP server names | | mcpm export | Export installed servers as an mcpm.yaml stack file | | mcpm lock | Resolve versions and create mcpm-lock.yaml with trust snapshots | | mcpm up | Install all servers from mcpm.yaml with trust verification | | mcpm verify | Repo-only CI gate: verify lockfile integrity vs npm's published record (--json) | | mcpm diff | Compare installed servers against mcpm.yaml and lock file | | mcpm sync | Show cross-client config drift across all detected clients (--check gates CI with exit 2, --json) | | mcpm completions | Generate shell completion scripts (bash, zsh, fish) | | mcpm why | Explain a server's trust score (breakdown of all components) | | mcpm serve | Start mcpm as an MCP server (stdio transport) | | mcpm guard enable | Wrap detected client configs with the inspection relay | | mcpm guard disable | Restore original client configs | | mcpm guard status | Show what's wrapped and the per-server pin state | | mcpm guard demo | Run the synthetic prompt-injection scenario (visible block) | | mcpm guard accept-drift | Re-pin a tool's schema after a legitimate upgrade | | mcpm guard mute | Disable a signature with optional --for | | mcpm guard unmute | Re-enable a muted signature | | mcpm guard pause | Pause all guard inspection (debugging escape hatch) | | mcpm guard cleanup | Prune pin entries for uninstalled servers | | mcpm guard list-signatures | Show the shipped OWASP MCP Top 10 signature catalog | | mcpm guard reset-integrity | Regenerate the pins.json or guard-policy.yaml integrity sidecar |

Run mcpm --help for options and flags.

CI: verify your lockfile

mcpm verify is a repo-only, client-free gate: it checks your committed mcpm-lock.yaml against npm's published dist.integrity record and exits non-zero on integrity drift, an unverifiable record, a format mismatch, or a suspicious missing baseline. Because it needs no AI clients installed, it runs on a hosted CI runner (where mcpm up cannot).

# .github/workflows/mcpm.yml
jobs:
  verify:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: getmcpm/cli/.github/actions/mcpm-verify@v0.19.0   # or: run: npx @getmcpm/cli verify

The Action writes a job step summary from --json; the same verb works as a pre-commit hook. See [.github/actions/mcpm-verify](.github/actions/mcpm-verify).

Code scanning: mcpm audit --sarif emits a SARIF 2.1.0 report (one rule per finding type, findings anchored file-level to mcpm.yaml) that GitHub ingests as code-scanning alerts:

      - run: npx @getmcpm/cli audit --sarif > mcpm.sarif
        continue-on-error: true   # audit exits 1 when a server is risky
      - uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
        if: always()              # upload even if the audit flagged a risk
        with:
          sarif_file: mcpm.sarif

> Honesty boundary: a failure means npm's published record diverged from your > lock — not that mcpm caught malicious bytes; npx/uvx fetch the artifact > independently at server launch.

Runtime defense (mcpm-guard)

Install-time trust scoring catches most poisoned servers before they ship. But what about rug-pulls — a server that changes its tool definitions after you've already approved them? Or prompt-injection in tool responses — adversarial text embedded in a Slack message, web page, or calendar invite that the agent reads through your trusted MCP server?

mcpm guard adds a runtime inspection layer. It wraps every installed MCP server with a stdio relay, scans tool descriptions / responses / arguments for OWASP MCP Top 10 attack patterns, pins each tool's schema at install time, and blocks calls when the live response drifts from the pin (rug-pull defense).

What happens on every tool call

The guard sits inline on the stdio channel between your AI client and each MCP server, so it sees both halves of every tool call and inspects them as they pass:

• The request your agent sends — the tool name and arguments, checked for sensitive-path exfil and injection smuggled into call parameters.
• The response the server returns — checked for instruction injection hidden in the tool's output (the Slack message, web page, or calendar invite your agent is about to read).
• The tool's own definition — tools/list descriptions, schemas, and annotations, checked against the schema pinned at approval time, so a server can't quietly rewrite a tool you already trusted.

When a frame trips a signature, drift check, or policy rule, the guard drops it and hands your agent a JSON-RPC error in its place — carrying the signature id and a remediation string — so the poisoned content never reaches your model. Clean calls pass straight through (p99 ~0.065 ms on small frames). Server-initiated sampling / elicitation requests are inspected the same way, with the error routed back to the server rather than to your agent.

Quick start

npm install -g @getmcpm/cli@latest

mcpm guard enable           # wrap detected client configs (Claude Desktop / Claude Code / Cursor / VS Code / Windsurf / Gemini CLI)
# → restart your IDE so it re-spawns the wrapped server processes
mcpm guard demo             # synthetic prompt-injection scenario — see a live block in your terminal
mcpm guard status           # what's protected, what's still in first-session-pin mode

The demo command boots an in-process synthetic malicious server that returns a canned prompt-injection payload; the relay blocks it. Total time from npm install to a screenshot-worthy block: ~5 minutes (most of which is the IDE restart).

What it catches

| Category | Attack class | Action | |---|---|---| | OWASP-MCP-1 | Tool-description injection (poisoning) | block | | OWASP-MCP-1 | Schema / annotation drift since install (rug-pull) | block | | OWASP-MCP-1 | Description-only drift (cosmetic tier) | warn | | OWASP-MCP-1 | Injection in initialize instructions | block | | OWASP-MCP-2 | Instruction injection in tool responses | block | | OWASP-MCP-2 | Instruction injection in resource / prompt content | warn (forward) | | OWASP-MCP-7 | Sensitive-path exfil in tool arguments | warn (promote to block via policy) | | Hidden chars | Zero-width / bidi / non-printable in tool metadata | high (warn) | | Sampling | Injection in a server-initiated sampling prompt | block (to the server) |

Detection is regex + structural; NFKC + zero-width-char stripping defeats the common Unicode evasions, and a separate hidden-character presence check flags evasion carriers before they're normalized away. See mcpm guard list-signatures for the current shipped set.

Confinement (opt-in enforcement)

Everything above is detection — the relay reasons about the JSON-RPC bytes and warns or blocks. But a server that decides to read ~/.ssh or write a ~/Library/LaunchAgents persistence hook never expresses that through inspectable traffic. mcpm guard enable --confine complements detection with enforcement: it wraps each relayed stdio server in an OS sandbox that physically denies reads of a secret-file denylist and writes outside caches/scratch, so the server can't exfil credentials or persist regardless of the JSON-RPC it emits. mcpm guard doctor-confine reports backend availability and which servers are enrolled. macOS only for now (Seatbelt/sandbox-exec); on other platforms it warns and runs unconfined rather than giving a false sense of protection. See docs/GUARD.md for the tier details and caveats.

Day-1 commands

mcpm guard enable [--client ] [--server ] [--dry-run]    # wrap detected configs
mcpm guard disable [--client ] [--server ]               # unwrap
mcpm guard status                                                    # what's wrapped + pin state
mcpm guard demo                                                      # synthetic attack-block demo
mcpm guard list-signatures [--json]                                  # show shipped signatures
mcpm guard enable --confine                                          # al

…

## Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [getmcpm](https://github.com/getmcpm)
- **Source:** [getmcpm/cli](https://github.com/getmcpm/cli)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://www.npmjs.com/package/@getmcpm/cli

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.