appcrane-mcp

The standalone MCP connector for AppCrane — the self-hosted deployment platform for AI-built, agent-deployed apps.

AppCrane exposes an MCP server at <instance>/api/mcp that requires an X-API-Key. This package is a thin stdio MCP server that:

1. Serves the full appcrane_* tool catalog for tools/list introspection with zero configuration — it ships a bundled catalog.json, so registries and sandboxes (e.g. Glama) can start it in a container and introspect it offline.
2. Proxies real tools/call to your own AppCrane instance once APPCRANE_URL and APPCRANE_KEY are set.

It runs anywhere Node 20+ is available, via npx appcrane-mcp.

Licensing: this connector is MIT. The AppCrane platform it talks to is a separate project and is AGPL-3.0. Installing this package does not pull the platform in — the connector is a client that talks to an AppCrane instance you host yourself.

How you connect

There is no hosted service and no AppCrane account. The flow is entirely your own:

1. You self-host AppCrane (AGPL) somewhere you control.
2. You issue an API key from that instance.
3. Your agent runs this connector locally over stdio (npx -y appcrane-mcp).
4. The connector forwards each tools/call to ${APPCRANE_URL}/api/mcp with your X-API-Key. Your key stays in your own MCP client config; it is never sent anywhere except the instance URL you set.

Install / run

npx appcrane-mcp

With no environment variables it still starts and answers tools/list from the bundled catalog (57 tools). To actually invoke tools against your instance, set:

MCP client configuration

This is a stdio command server (not an HTTP endpoint). Add it to your MCP client config like this:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "appcrane": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "appcrane-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "APPCRANE_URL": "https://crane.example.com",
        "APPCRANE_KEY": "your_api_key",
        "APPCRANE_GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_optional_for_github_passthrough"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add appcrane \
  --env APPCRANE_URL=https://crane.example.com \
  --env APPCRANE_KEY=your_api_key \
  -- npx -y appcrane-mcp

How it works

• tools/list
  • If APPCRANE_URL + APPCRANE_KEY are set → connects to ${APPCRANE_URL}/api/mcp (StreamableHTTP, header X-API-Key, plus X-Github-Token when the GitHub token is set), fetches the live, auth-filtered tool list, and returns it. If the instance is unreachable it falls back to the bundled catalog.
  • If not configured → returns the bundled static catalog (catalog.json). This path needs no env vars, which is what a registry's introspection sandbox hits.
• tools/call → requires APPCRANE_URL + APPCRANE_KEY; forwards the call to the backend and returns its result. Without configuration it returns a clear "not configured" error.

Docker

docker build -t appcrane-mcp .

# Introspection only (no config) — starts and serves tools/list:
docker run -i --rm appcrane-mcp

# Full use:
docker run -i --rm \
  -e APPCRANE_URL=https://crane.example.com \
  -e APPCRANE_KEY=your_api_key \
  appcrane-mcp

Development

npm install
npm run build          # tsc -> dist/
npm run gen:catalog    # regenerate catalog.json from the AppCrane platform source
npm run check:catalog  # fail if catalog.json has drifted from that source
node scripts/test-list.mjs   # smoke test: spawn over stdio, assert tools/list

Both catalog scripts import the platform's own getToolCatalog() from a sibling deployhub checkout; set APPCRANE_SRC to point at its server/services/mcpTools.js if yours lives elsewhere.

Releasing

Bump version in package.json, commit, then push a matching tag:

git tag v1.3.5 && git push origin v1.3.5

.github/workflows/publish.yml publishes it to npm with npm Trusted Publishing: no npm token and no one-time password, and npm attaches provenance (the commit it was built from). The workflow refuses a tag that does not match package.json, and checks the catalog against the platform's current main before publishing, so a stale catalog.json cannot ship. (It has rotted silently before: 22 tools behind the platform, 35 advertised against 57 real.) Run npm run check:catalog locally first to find out before CI does.

The same tag then lists the version in the official MCP Registry as io.github.gitayg/appcrane, also by OIDC. Bump version and packages[0].version in server.json together with package.json: the workflow refuses a tag that does not match all three. (The listing sat at 1.0.0 while npm moved on, until this was automated.)

The bundled catalog.json is generated from the real tool definitions in the AppCrane platform (deployhub/server/services/mcpTools.js) and reflects the AWS-aligned tool vocabulary (appcrane_set_secret, appcrane_get_secret, appcrane_cp, and the stage parameter). It is committed so the package ships self-contained.

About AppCrane

AppCrane is a self-hosted home for AI-built and AI-deployed apps. This connector is MIT-licensed to maximize adoption; the platform itself is AGPL.

• This connector (MIT): https://github.com/gitayg/appcrane-mcp
• Platform (AGPL-3.0): https://github.com/gitayg/appCrane
• Product page: https://glick.run/appcrane.html