CLI

CLI surface and practical commands.

The CLI bootstraps clusters, manages registries, builds and deploys server images, and inspects the runtime plus sentinel stack. If you want to operate MCP Runtime today, this is the surface you will actually use.

Runtime docs API docs

Bootstrap commands

These are the shortest useful commands for getting the platform and one delivery path moving.

make deps && make build-runtime

./bin/mcp-runtime setup
./bin/mcp-runtime status

./bin/mcp-runtime registry push --image my-server:latest
./bin/mcp-runtime pipeline generate --dir .mcp --output manifests/
./bin/mcp-runtime pipeline deploy --dir manifests/

Command groups

setup

Installs the platform stack, including CRDs, ingress, registry, operator, proxy image wiring, and the bundled sentinel stack.

mcp-runtime setup
mcp-runtime setup --with-tls
mcp-runtime setup --without-sentinel

cluster

Handles cluster initialization, status checks, kubeconfig and ingress configuration, provider-based provisioning, and cert-manager actions.

mcp-runtime cluster init
mcp-runtime cluster config --ingress traefik
mcp-runtime cluster provision --provider kind
mcp-runtime cluster cert status

status

Shows platform status across cluster, registry, operator, MCP servers, and the bundled sentinel workloads.

mcp-runtime status

server

Lists, creates, deletes, inspects, and tails logs for MCPServer resources. Build helpers live under server build.

mcp-runtime server list
mcp-runtime server create payments --image repo/payments
mcp-runtime server create payments --file server.yaml
mcp-runtime server build image payments

registry

Shows registry info, provisions external registry settings, and pushes images by Docker or in-cluster skopeo helper job.

mcp-runtime registry info
mcp-runtime registry provision --url registry.example.com
mcp-runtime registry push --image my-server:latest
mcp-runtime registry push --image my-server:latest --mode direct

pipeline

Turns metadata into manifests and applies those manifests to the cluster for CI/CD friendly delivery.

mcp-runtime pipeline generate --dir .mcp --output manifests
mcp-runtime pipeline deploy --dir manifests

Useful flags and behaviors

setup flags

--registry-type, --registry-storage, --ingress, --ingress-manifest, --force-ingress-install, --with-tls, --test-mode, and --without-sentinel.

cluster provider wiring

cluster config can work with kubeconfig plus cloud provider inputs, while cluster provision supports kind, gke, eks, and aks entry points.

registry push modes

registry push defaults to in-cluster, which uses a helper pod, but can switch to direct when local Docker push is the right fit.

server creation

server create supports simple image and tag flags or a file path when you want to apply a fuller manifest with gateway and analytics fields.

Common flows

Create a local cluster path

mcp-runtime cluster provision --provider kind --nodes 3
mcp-runtime setup

Push a server image

mcp-runtime server build image payments
mcp-runtime registry push --image payments:latest

Deploy from metadata

mcp-runtime pipeline generate --dir .mcp --output manifests
mcp-runtime pipeline deploy --dir manifests

Operator-first CLI

More than a thin wrapper

The CLI already owns install planning, registry and image handling, status aggregation, and the bridge from metadata to cluster state. That is why the docs treat it as a primary product surface instead of a footnote.